Soul's Beginning
by Himesayuri Phoenix
Summary: In the Living World, a newly-dead soul fends off a Hollow bare-handed and alone. In Soul Society, a sheltered noble looks for a way out. Together, they're about to take Soul Society and the Gotei 13 by storm....but first, they have to enter Academy...
1. Prologue

Prologue

Soul's Beginning - Prologue

Tanaka Goro, unseated Shinigami of the Gotei 13's Third Division, sat lounging on top of the tallest skyscraper in Osaka's 22nd sector, staring up at the stars with a yawn. It had been an entirely uneventful night. Goro had only just been assigned a sector in the real world to watch…he'd expected it to be a bit more exciting. So far, a week later, there had only been two Hollow attacks. Both had been finished off within minutes.

"What a bore," he said aloud to no one in particular, stretching his arms and settling back into a slouch.

The cell phone rang. Goro jumped about a foot in the air before fumbling around in his robe's pocket to fish it out. Finally – a Hollow.

"A big one!" Goro grinned. The screen on his cell showed the spirit particle analysis taken as the Hollow switched dimensions from Hueco Mundo to the real world. It was Grimm Reaper, a notorious target that had been evading Shinigami interference for many months. Two shinigami dead by his hands; evaded capture by another five. 10,000 cash bounty.

"No wonder they transferred me here…must have lost the last guy to this Hollow," Goro murmured. He stood, checking the locator on his phone. The Hollow was near the Expressway, mostly deserted at this time of night.

But there was one soul nearby.

"I'll need backup for this." Goro dialed the phone while moving toward the Expressway at top speed. If he could just avoid being seen until backup arrived…

"Yes, this is Tanaka Goro of Osaka Sector 22, requesting backup for dispatch of the Hollow 'Grimm Reaper' located just off the expressway…yes, I understand it will be a few moments until they get here…just hurry, there's a recently deceased soul nearby, and you know what Grimm does with those. Right. Yes, sir." He hung up the phone and slipped it back in his pocket, moving his grip to his soul slayer. With a Hollow this dangerous, one had to be prepared for anything.

Goro arrived at the scene of the recent death, a park just below the Expressway, just before Grimm Reaper. He scanned the area quickly for the deceased. He was there, a young adult male with blond hair pulled back in a ponytail, quizzically examining a horrific wreck of a motorcycle that had clearly launched over the edge of the Expressway above.

It was Grimm's favorite target – a soul that hadn't quite realized they were dead.

Goro moved in the direction of the soul, hoping to purify him before the Hollow arrived. No such luck; the beeping from his pocket, and the roaring noise from the other side of the park indicated that the Hollow had already come.

He was an odd Hollow, although no less terrifying; his mask was long and thin, skull-like, with a pointed chin and two curved horns at the top, grinning in a slightly off-balance way. His body, long and dark, was shaped like that of a classic ghost, and in one hand he carried a bone scythe that matched the appearance of his mask.

The blond-haired soul turned to look at the giant monster behind him.

"Wait a minute. Are you…death?" The soul sounded more amused than scared.

Goro's hand tightened over his sword. That soul was in trouble if backup didn't come soon, but to go after that particular Hollow alone would be suicide.

"I see you've figured it out," the Hollow's ringing voice sounded across the park lawn.

"So, that means I didn't make the jump after all?"

"…no," the Hollow said.

"Damn. So…what now?"

"What n…" The bemused Hollow took a moment to recover. "Now, you come with me. You died; now your soul is my property."

"Hey now, wait a minute. My soul belongs to you just because I died? Don't I have any say?"

"Don't worry, soul," the Hollow said, flowing forward slowly now, tone getting darker as he moved. "Just come to me. It won't hurt any."

"Well, in that case," said the soul, standing and taking a step toward the Hollow. "Only…"

The Hollow's giant scythe raised in the air, prepped to swing.

"…if it's not supposed to hurt, what's with the giant curved blade?" The soul's eyes narrowed ever so slightly.

"Come to me!" the Hollow roared, swinging downward at the soul.

Just then, two shinigami reinforcements arrived on either side of Goro, in the trees.

"I think you guys are too late," Goro began, but the two shinigami weren't listening. They were staring, open-mouthed, at the Hollow and the soul in the clearing.

The Hollow had swung, but his scythe was now stopped in its tracks, blade held off one-handed by the soul below him.

"L..look at that spirit power! You can see it radiating off of him!" one of the reinforcements said with awe.

Goro just stared. Never before had he seen a normal soul, with no history of outstanding spiritual power or ability, fend off a Hollow. Let alone empty-handed.

"Nobody," said the soul, glaring upwards at the shocked Hollow, "owns my soul except for me."


	2. Chapter 1

Chapter 1

Chapter 1

"Akemi, dear, where have you gotten to? Aren't you ready yet? The Shihouins will be here any minute."

My mother's voice played musically on the opposite side of the door. No wonder; the Shihouin family was even more respected than ours, one of the oldest families of nobility in Soul Society; truly honored guests.

Too bad I couldn't care less.

"Mama, I…I'm not feeling well at all." I mimicked my best cough, looking at myself in the mirror. I knew I couldn't pull off looking unhealthy, but I was hoping I could at least pull off sounding sick.

Apparently I could. "Oh, dear. You sound terrible! We can't have you entertaining the Shihouin family in such a state. I'm afraid you'll just have to stay in your room tonight, dear. I'll send the maid in with some lunch in a bit."

"Oh, no mama, that's just fine," I said, attempting not to let the sound of my smile leak through the door. "I'm not hungry anyway." I added another cough for good measure. "Have fun, and send the Shihouins my regards."

"I'll do that, dear."

I waited a few moments before even daring to move, lest she hear me and realize I wasn't laying incapacitated on my futon. Once she was gone though, there was no need to worry; she wouldn't check in on me for the rest of the day. That's how my mother was when it came to entertaining guests; it absorbed her completely. My mother was born for this type of life.

So was I, supposedly. But over a hundred years of grooming, training and comfortable living merely bored me. The noble life was for my parents; it was not for me.

Too bad I had no choice.

I sighed, watching myself in the mirror as I pulled the raggedy hooded cape on over the old, plain beige kimono tied around my waist.

_Almost ready._

I reached up and pulled the silver and pink lily clip, the Sayuri family insignia, out of my hair, letting my bangs fall loose with the rest of my wavy brown hair. I slipped the clip in my pocket, just to get by the gatekeeper of the Seireitei North Gate. The cape's hood was pulled over my head. Now I wouldn't be recognized.

I slid open the window and pulled myself out, closing it behind me.

_Time for some fun._

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

I wandered several hours through the inner districts of North Rukongai, making my way farther from the center. This wasn't my first outing; I'd taken to it a few years back, and in that time I'd learned a few things. The outermost districts of Rukongai were far too dangerous, not to mention painful to experience, but the innermost districts were just plain boring. The optimal location for an interesting afternoon walk was right about dead center, where some of the safety of inner Rukongai was retained, but the character and plights commonly found in outer Rukongai could also be witnessed.

It wasn't exactly a trip to the Living World, but it may as well have been for someone like me, raised in the innermost ramparts of the Court of Pure Souls for over a hundred years. Rukongai was foreign to me, as were the people in it and the lives they led. I much preferred an afternoon wandering the streets and observing their inhabitants to an afternoon of stuffy conversation and tea.

Turning down a side alley, busy looking at the stand of a fruit vendor on the side of the road, I was blindsided by two small children running full speed down the street. Before I could pull myself upright, or even grasp what had just happened, a hand reached down and offered me a lift. I took it, gazing back into grinning, hazel eyes.

"Sorry about that," the young man laughed, blonde ponytail shaking behind him. He reached down and scooped up the two small boys who had run me over, lifting one under each arm. They fought back, but were smiling. "The little bastards have no sense of manners."

"Hey!" one of them exclaimed. "That's not nice!"

"A piece of candy for you each if you don't tell Gran and Gramps?" the young man offered, eyebrows raised.

"Deal!" was the enthusiastic reply.

"Taiki," the young man introduced himself, setting the young ones down and offering a hand.

I took it delicately, still a bit overwhelmed. "A-Akemi. Pleased to meet you."

"Haven't seen you around." He gave me an appraising look. "You new here?"

"Yeah," I said. Technically it was true.

"You look about…what, 16, 17? You got a family yet? I mean, you're a bit older than the usual kids Gran and Gramps take in, but I hate to see a pretty girl like you left out in the cold…"

"I've got a family," I said quickly. "They live a good ways from here, but I like to go walking. You know, explore."

"Gotcha."

Three more kids, all looking between the ages of about 10 and 13, appeared out of the crowd carrying a few sacks of food amongst them.

"Hey, Taiki-nii-san, we've got the supplies," the oldest of the bunch called out.

"Good," Taiki replied, turning to spot them. "Shall we get back then?"

The kids nodded, and they turned down an alternate side street. As I was watching them leave, prepared to continue on my way, Taiki-san turned back to look at me.

"Hey, you wanna join? We're having a picnic in the garden tonight."

"Umm…" I couldn't think of a reason not to, and it would certain count as my "interesting" for the day. "Sure. Thanks."

I followed the lively, odd group down a couple of streets, finally arriving at a small house with a tin roof that looked like it probably leaked in the rain. Despite its shoddy appearance and size far too small for its many inhabitants, it was surrounded by a beautifully manicured garden, in the midst of which a blanket had been lain out. An older lady, white hair pulled back in a bun, walked out of the front door carrying a platter full of lemonade glasses.

"Oh, good, you're back!" She smiled warmly.

"We got everything you asked for, Gran!" one of the older boys said, holding out a sack in demonstration.

"Fantastic. Well, we're almost ready then."

"Hey, Gran," said Taiki. "I, uh, kinda invited someone along." He shoved me in front of him. "Hope you don't mind. She looked lonely," he added in an exceptionally loud whisper.

The old lady set the platter on the blanket and looked me over. "I don't mind at all, Taiki dear, you know that. What's your name, love?"

"Akemi," I said hesitantly.

"Well it's a pleasure to meet you, Akemi. Welcome to our home. It isn't much, but we do love it. Oh, and you can call me Gran."

"Sounds good." I smiled. It was hard not to like the old woman.

"Well, I'll take these inside," Gran said, taking the bags of goods. "The food will be ready soon. When Gramps gets home, you send him inside, okay?" She toddled back into the tiny house.

"Come on, over here," Taiki said, sprawling down to sit on one edge of the blanket. I, and the five young children, all obliged. "So, what do you want to do while we're waiting?" He gave me a suave grin. "Any preference, Miss Akemi?"

"What? Oh, I…"

"Tell your death story again!" one of the younger boys shouted. There were cheers.

"Whaaat?" Taiki whined, faking a pout. "I've told that story like a bajillion times! Oh, I know, how about Akemi tells hers?"

"I don't really –" I began, but I was gratefully cut off by the protests of the children.

"No, no, Taiki-nii-san, we want to hear yours!"

"You know you want to."

"And there's no such things as a bajillion," added the youngest.

"Sure there is…oh, fine," Taiki said, giving in. Clearly the comment about wanting to tell the story was right; it didn't take him long to get into it. He jumped up, holding two fists out in front of him as if he was holding onto a pair of handlebars.

"Okay, so it was dark out, beautiful starry sky, and there I was riding my motorcycle straight at the jump. Hundreds of people were watching, cheers everywhere! And then –"

"I thought you said you were just on the normal Expressway," one of the kids protested.

"And the first time you told this story, you said you were alone," commented another. I held back a snicker.

"Hey, now." Taiki wagged a finger at the kids. "Who's telling this story, you or me? So anyway, I hit the jump and went _flying!_ I did a whole back-flip, and the crowd goes wild, and as I'm floating back towards the ground –"

"You mean _falling_," interrupted the eldest child.

" – I make the decision to try to grind on the safety rail when I land," Taiki continued, unfazed. He demonstrated each move as if his hand was this 'motorcycle' thing, flying through the air. "The railing is coming up closer and closer, but the flashing camera lights in the crowd distracted me, and I slipped, crashing down onto the railing and then farther down into the park next to the road. I hit so many branches on the way down, it's a wonder I survived…"

"You didn't."

Taiki paused. "Right. Anyway, my incredibly manly soul must have smelled delicious, because out of nowhere this ginormous Hollow appears and attacks me with his razor-sharp scythe!" He raised his arms back behind his head as if to swing. The kids all leaned away from him in mock fear, giggling. "But then…"

"You totally destroyed him!" several of the kids chanted together.

Suddenly, I was listening.

"You killed a Hollow?" I demanded. "Bare-handed?"

Taiki rose an eyebrow my direction, still laughing along with the kids. "Yep. Impressed?"

"Impressed? Why, that's…"

"More like fended it off until the three shinigami saved his butt," the boy nearest to me whispered.

"Still, that's unheard of," I replied.

"It was nothing." Taiki waved his hand through the air. "Now, let me go check on Gran…"

The sound of the garden gate opening interrupted Taiki, and he stopped, looking over his shoulder to see who had arrived. I turned, seeing his frown, expecting to see the famous 'Gramps'. What I saw instead were two black-clad shinigami, from the Gotei Thirteen 10th division judging from their armbands.

I cowered a bit lower inside my cloak, avoiding their glances; if by any chance they recognized me, I would be in a big deal of trouble.

_Are they here for me? How did they know?_

"Masuyo Taiki?" came the gruff voice from the shinigami on the left.

"Yes," Taiki said from before his house's door, brow furrowed even deeper now.

"We're representing the Shinigami Academy," stated the other black-clad man. "We'd like to have a word."

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

In the relative chaos that ensued when all five boys, Taiki, and Gran swarmed the two shinigami demanding answers to a stream of questions, dinner was all but forgotten. Not wanting to draw attention near the two important visitors, I left a scribbled note of thanks, saying that I had to be getting home quickly, and slipped out through the flower bushes at the back of the garden unseen. Even when I hurried, it took an hour for me to reach the Seireitei North Gate. The whole way, I was thinking about what I had just seen. It was just a tiny idea, formulating somewhere deep in my consciousness, but somehow I couldn't get rid of it.

_A way to escape this…_

I slipped my lily hairpiece out of my cloak pocket discreetly upon arriving at the Gate, flashing it at the gatekeeper. He grinned conspiratorially and let me through with a small bow.

Once inside Seireitei, I hurried to my family's mansion and slipped back in through my window, fashioning the clip back in my hair and taking off my cloak as I did so. The moment I was dressed well enough to convince my mother I'd been in my room sick all day instead of, say, dumpster-diving – which she certainly would have suspected had she seen me in my other clothes – I took a deep breath, straightened my back, and walked through my door. Down the hall, my mother and father were sitting on a fancy tan couch, discussing something lightly over evening tea.

"Oh, Akemi dear," my mother said, lighting up at my entrance to the sitting room. "I'm so glad to see you're feeling better."

I bowed my head in acknowledgement.

"You certainly did miss out earlier," she continued. "The Shihouins had the most fantastic news. Their middle son, Tsubasa-san – you know him, right? – he just made Vice Captain!"

"Excellent caliber, that one," my father commented. "If he wasn't in the Gotei squads, he would be an excellent candidate for a betrothal, you know. It _is_ about time we find you someone suitable…"

I coughed, cringing inwardly. Now was as good a time as ever.

"Actually, Father, Mother…" I paused, steadying my breathing. Something told me they wouldn't react too favorably to this… "Mother, Father," I began again, "I've decided that I'd like to enter the Shinigami Academy."


	3. Chapter 2

Chapter 2

Chapter 2

I'll admit, when those shinigami punks all dressed from black showed up at Gran and Gramps's front gate, asking for me, I had no idea what was up. I mean, come on, as far as I was concerned I'd led an entirely normal existence on Earth, and from what I'd seen of Soul Society, I had no reason to believe I was at all unusual there, either. Lone soul, recently died, adopted into an invented family, decently comfortable, pretty happy…you know the deal. Nothing special.

But the more they talked to me about this Shinigami Academy, the more I was convinced. It sounded pretty cool. Running around with swords, saving people's lives. And, according to Gran, it was a pretty rare opportunity, too. She told me few souls ever make it into Seireitei, that fancy white set of buildings on the hill. It's the only way out, she said. Now, I wasn't so sure I _wanted_ out; I liked my makeshift family, even if I hadn't know them very long. But I liked the sense of adventure being offered to me as well.

The two men said I needn't even apply; what was seen of me in the real world guaranteed my entrance, if I so chose. I wasn't even sure what they were talking about there, until one mumbled to another about the Hollow that tried to eat me.

Get this – that Akemi girl who came to visit wasn't joking; it really is pretty rare to be able to fend off a Hollow. Who knew?

"Just bring this to any one of the four Gatekeepers one week from Friday," said one of the shinigami, handing me some sort of official notification, 'Masuyo Taiki' written in large print at the top. "There will be someone waiting to show you the way." I nodded and took the piece of paper, sealing my fate.

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

When the day came and I was to leave Rukongai behind, my siblings gave me a grand send-off, leaving me with notes and hand-drawn pictures. They even helped Gran pack up a bento lunch for me to eat on the way.

"You come back and visit now, y'hear?" Gramps shouted after me, standing at the gate with the rest of my family to see me off.

I grinned and waved over my shoulder, but once I turned toward Seireitei I didn't look back. Wish I could have told him I'd be back someday, but something about the general lack of shinigami in Rukongai told me that might not be the case.

Clearly I was not the only one entering Shinigami Academy that day. Quite the crowd gathered at the North Gate, milling around, waiting for something to happen, official invitations just like the one I was carrying stuffed in their hands. I moved a bit closer to the crowd.

My first shock of the day was the gatekeeper. He was huge. You think I'm kidding? He was almost as tall as the wall itself, towering a good 30 feet into the air. He wore equally gigantic shinigami robes. The guard didn't twitch an eye toward any of us; he seemed to be waiting for the right moment, and until then not even a finger moved. He was really more giant, immovable statue than human.

But I suppose a giant, immovable statue is as good a gatekeeper as any. Certainly none of us were getting past him.

A flash of movement to the right of the gate caught my eye. A small girl – no older than ten, short, bright blue hair obscuring her face – was sobbing and handing some money over to some dark-haired punk. He took the wad of bills with one hand, grinning, holding her in place by the top of her head with his other.

"Thanks, kid – what the – ?"

He had just begun to mock the poor thing when he found himself up against the wall, facing me, my forearm pressed against his neck.

"Give it back," I growled.

"But she…" he squeaked, eyes wide.

""I _said_ give it _back_!" I pressed harder against the wall, and although he was about my height he was lifted slightly off the ground.

"Excuse me, has something happened here?" The cool, collected voice came from a girl who didn't look much younger than me (though who can really tell, in a place like Soul Society?), with pure white hair tied back in a tight ponytail. She wore a normal grey street yukata like the rest of us, but carried a calm sort of authority that startled me. I felt my grip on the boy lessen somewhat under her stare. Still, I had every right to defend my actions, didn't I?

"This punk stole this little girl's lunch money! I wasn't just going to stand there and let him harass the poor thing…"

"Oh, good," the white-haired girl put in. "Ran-chan, you finally paid Hideki-kun back for the nikuman of his you ate last week?"

I stared down at the blue-haired child and when she peered up at me I was surprised to see she hadn't been crying, but giggling. Madly.

"Sorry nee-chan, I swear I thought it was mine," she said through her laughing.

Slight coughing alerted me to the fact that I still held the dark-haired young man against the wall.

"You _might _want to let him go," the white-haired young woman commented thoughtfully.

I yanked back my arm and the boy fell to his knees, eyes bulging and comically gasping for air.

I eyed him, still unconvinced. "Hey then, if she was giving it freely why'd you have to go and be so rough with her, grabbing at her hair like that?"

The little one, Ran, laughed and pranced in a little circle. "Hideki-san likes to ruffle my hair," she said with a sing-song tone. "'Specially since it's all blue."

The young man shrugged sheepishly from the ground. "It's true. It's my one weakness."

"…oh," I said, praying fervently that no one would remember this incident tomorrow.

But hey, you would have done the same thing, right? Right?

"Kobayashi Kaede," the white-haired young lady introduced herself finally, holding out a hand and taking my briskly. I was only half paying attention. "Masuyo Taiki," I said, eyes still on the prancing Ran and the boy I'd tackled, who looked no older than 17.

"Although," Kaede said out of nowhere, "it's not like she needs protection anyway. You should know that. All of us here are Academy entrants."

I stared dumbfoundedly as the little girl proudly shoved a piece of paper in my face. It was an application. "Sasaki, Ran," it read near the top, and had been approved and stamped with the official Academy seal.

"Isn't it cool?" Ran fidgeted in front of me, beaming.

"You had to apply?" I asked.

"You didn't, then, I take it?" came Kaede's voice.

I was stumped.

She continued. "I didn't either. They must have been scouting you?"

I nodded.

"They've been after me for years," Kaede said, "but I just couldn't leave until all the younger ones were taken care of. Ran-chan here was the last of the group."

Ran looked over at the sound of her name and grinned, wider than I would've thought possible on so small a face.

"I had to apply, too," added Hideki, but I ignored him, just in case acknowledging him meant I would have to apologize.

"If all Academy entrants would please line up at the gate." The booming voice blasted like a loudspeaker and rang as if it had come from the air itself. The gatekeeper glared at me when I didn't move immediately, and I realized the voice had been his. "I'll check your papers on your way in."

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

The crowd was herded through the streets of Seireitei, shinigami on all sides of the group, theoretically a welcoming committee though it sure felt to me like they were more there to keep us from wandering. I never would have found the place by myself; those white walls and buildings with all their little side streets are some kind of maze. Somehow, by the time we reached an oversized white complex with a black gate reading "Shinigami Academy," our numbers had swelled; there were probably near a hundred of us now. I completely lost track of Kaede, Ran, and Hideki in the mess of people on the way over; now I couldn't have found them for the numbers that were gathered in the street just outside the gate.

"This way, please," one of the shinigami offered, opening up the gates for us to pass. He stood at the gate as we pressed our way through, scanning the heads of all who passed as if to be extra sure their weren't any who were sneaking in uninvited. He was still scrutinizing those who were piling in behind me as I was pressed forward in the crowd, moved toward the nearest building, and shoved into a set of hallways.

"Please move into the lecture room and await your instructions," a disembodied voice shouted over the crowd. "You may as well take this time to get to know one another."

I followed the bodies moving in front of me through the thin hallway until we arrived in the aforementioned lecture room; as the bodies spread out to fill the much larger space, there was room to breathe, and to look around. I sat on top of one of the desks and stared idly around me; it wasn't likely I was going to meet up with anyone I knew here, anyway.

A girl a bit younger than me, purple hair piled in a large bun on top of her head and scarf wrapped around her neck, was sitting in the chair a row down from me, to my front. I decided it couldn't hurt to meet some people, and tapped her on the shoulder.

"Hey. Taiki," I said as means of introduction.

She turned and faced me, frowning a bit at first, and then just raising one of her eyebrows at me.

I coughed. "Er, hello. My name is Taiki," I tried. "Pleased to meet you."

She eyed me still, nodding shortly.

"What?" I gave in finally, exasperated. "Did I offend you or something? Can't you even talk?"

At that, an amused sparkle entered the girl's eyes, which otherwise would have appeared rather annoyed, and she held up a small paper handwritten sign.

"My name is Kinoyama Raiko," it read, "And no, I can't talk."

I merely looked at her for a moment. Finally, getting the feeling that she would laugh at me if she had the voice to, I said, "…oh. Well, um…wanna hang out?"

She smiled as if approving of this change in subject, and nodded genially, turning in her chair so we could make conversation.

Well…you know what I mean.

Before I could even wonder exactly how I was going to go about conversing with this new acquaintance, I saw a familiar face emerge from the crowd which was still spilling into the room. It was Hideki, the teenage-looking boy with the dark blue-purple hair trimming his face who I had earlier…well, unnecessarily attacked.

A queasy lingering feeling in my stomach, as well as the curious look Raiko gave me when I paled at his entrance, finally prodded me to stand and move his direction. He didn't seem to see me. I sidled up to his side, took a deep breath, and staring off another direction said, "Look, it was an accident, a misunderstanding…"

"Are…are you talking to me?" Hideki turned and glared at me like he'd never seen me before, and probably didn't care to again.

"No!" I said defensively before I could stop myself, but then countered, "I mean yes, but I'm just…I mean what I'm trying to say is, I'm sorry…I guess…" I trailed off.

"Um…right, whatever," he answered, now knitting his eyebrows and cocking his head at me. He gave me one last look like he was pretty sure I was crazy, and I was just getting frustrated enough to take it back when a voice called out from the crowd.

"Hiroki! Yo, we're over here!"

I looked over to find the source of the young masculine voice and paled even further to see it belonged to Hideki, who was sitting around another group of desks with Kaede and Ran.

"There's…there's two of you?" I gulped under my breath, and Hiroki, as the boy beside me was apparently called, rolled his eyes at me again and made his way towards his twin.

"Ooooh and look, he found Taiki too!" Little Ran squealed in delight and waved me over; beside her, Kaede nodded unconsciously in approval.

I moved towards them, then stopped and looked back over my shoulder at Raiko, who was still sitting alone.

"Er, can I…?" I began.

"Bring her on over, she's more than welcome," Kaede answered before I could finish.

I retrieved Raiko and introduced her to the group, carefully avoiding Hiroki's eyes even more than earlier; Raiko took an empty seat, and I re-settled myself on top of one of the desks. We were in the midst of discussions on what the application process had been like for those who weren't recruited when Hideki suddenly gave a low whistle, eyes turned raptly over my shoulder at the door.

"Check it out. We've got ourselves a Seireitei noble."

I turned and looked back toward the lecture room's doorway to see standing in it a girl dressed in startling white robes, flowing down over her light frame so that she looked like she was floating. A pure white scarf draped her neck and hung over her shoulders; wavy chestnut hair framed her face, pale except for bright blue eyes and a flash of red on her cheeks as she stood in place, surveying the room. I don't think I'd ever seen someone so beautiful.

But then…I had. I had seen someone as…no, I'd seen _her_ somewhere. I was sure of it.

I turned back to my new friends, not quite able to place the memory.

Kaede's eyes had widened. "But that's…no way, is that the Sayuri family's head daughter?"

Hiroki shook his head. "The Sayuri head-to-be's a man, this generation. Probably she's that cousin of his. Second in line."

"Either way," Hideki shrugged.

Kaede nodded, as if some obvious statement had just been made.

That was when I remembered.

"Akemi!" I said aloud.

Kaede turned. "Akemi, was it? No, no I'm pretty sure it was Ayuko…or Aya? Was it Aya?"

"You know I think he's right," Hideki said. "I think it was Sayuri Akemi. But Taiki-san, didn't you say earlier you were new here? How'd you know something like that?"

"I…I've met her," I said unevenly, staring back at the girl as she slid hesitantly into the room and took a seat not too near anyone else. Our group weren't the only ones staring. "I met her in Rukongai. Not far from my place. She…came to dinner."

"What?" Hiroki said, looking at me for the second time since we'd met under an hour ago as if I was crazy. "Nobles don't go out in Rukongai, man. Not her type, anyway. The Sayuri family's big, I'm telling you. They're under consideration for being adopted as the fifth major noble family of Seireitei. That sort of thing hasn't been done for ages."

"They were actually a branch family of the Kuchiki clan a long time ago," Hideki added, "but now they're so big they're considered a clan of their own."

"Wait, wait, wait," I said, feeling that we were getting a bit off-topic. "Gran said nobles were born in Soul Society."

Ran nodded at me. "Sure are. That's what decides if you're a noble or not, although some noble families are so small they live in Rukongai. They're just minor nobility."

"But that girl there…you're saying she's not minor nobility."

Hiroki laughed outright. "Are you kidding? She's almost as big as it gets, man."

"And…and there's no mistaking it?"

"See the flower?" Kaede pointed at the girl's hair. A light pink flower on a silver clasp ornamented one side, pulling her hair out of her eyes. "That's the Sayuri family marker. That, and the scarf, are proof that she's noble. Although most would recognize her by sight…at least here in Seireitei."

I couldn't quite make my thoughts move in order. She – the girl who had come to dinner, Akemi – she's said she was new to Rukongai. She said she lived there, had a family there. She was dressed like us. She was one of us.

It's no wonder I hadn't recognized her, in those fancy clothes.

"No," I said, shaking my head. "That…can't be her."

Ran shrugged. "She sure is pretty, anyway. I wish I could wear a flower in my hair like that!"

"You're not the only one, dear," Kaede said quietly, dropping her eyes away from the noble girl who'd disturbed the peace of the room, and I finally did the same.

After what seemed like quite awhile, as our newly formed group of acquaintances ran out of very interesting things to say that would be suitable for people you'd just met and fell into an uncomfortable silence, a tall and very thin older man with long dark hair and shinigami's robes walked into the room.

"Excuse me, please," he boomed, and every face turned to look. "I am Hagiwara." He gave a slow partial incline of his head, and a few of the students who were standing bowed back, unsure what to do with this new arrival. "I will be your Theory instructor…but regardless. Please form a line out the door and into the room just to the right of this. You will be fitted for your students' robes at the time you arrive in said room. This could take some time; please exert your greatest patience, and my humble apologies for the inconvenience."

Another scattering of bows followed our first professor out of the room, and no one moved for a moment, all of us staring after him. Finally, I shook my head a bit and stood, motioning for the others sitting near me to follow. People around us started to move as well, and we made our way into as neat, polite, and patient a line as we could manage.

After all, he _had_ asked nicely.

Though we were near the front, it was about a half hour until we came into view of the fitting stations in the room next door. There were three of them, and at each sat large piles of white uniforms, marked with red or blue and organized by size. The next few students in line were being ushered to each station; each was given a uniform as their name was checked off a list, and each disappeared behind a curtain to try on what they'd been given.

Akemi peeked out from the middle curtain, her old robes and the pink and silver hairpin tucked under one arm. "Um, it fits, thank you," she said in a low voice to the person sitting on the table, who looked up to find her now sporting red and white petite shinigami robes.

"Oh, Miss Sayuri," the black-haired young man replied, "I'm glad. But you know, you don't have to remove the scarf or hairpin."

"I…oh," she said, and cast furtive eyes on the specified items in her arms. "Really, it's okay if…"

"No, no," the man insisted, standing and bowing a little. "Your parents would never forgive me if I didn't allow it, you must…"

I watched them argue politely for a moment before I realized that both me and Raiko, who was just in front of me in line, were being ushered forward to our respective booths. She took the one on the left, I the one on the right.

"Name?" the bored blond woman sitting at the table asked in a monotone.

"Masuyo Taiki."

"All right. Put this on." She sized me up quickly and handed me a medium-sized blue and white robe set. From this close, I noticed the school symbol on the chest. I dodged behind the curtain and in a matter of moments had tied the robes on. Reaching into my untidy pile of discarded clothes, I tugged out my favorite green vest and pulled it on over the top of the uniform.

"There. All ready." I admired the sexy new outfit in the mirror hanging on the wall for a moment, then stepped back out and handed my extra clothing to the assistant.

"Sir, if you could please take off that vest, we'll have it delivered to the recruits' dormitory as soon as possible," the bored blonde woman said, holding out her hand to grab it from me.

"But…I always wear this! It's my lucky vest! I wore it the day I landed my most amazing –"

"I'm sorry sir. It's protocol. Recruits are to wear only the prescribed uniform, nothing else."

To my far left, Raiko pushed through the curtain, red uniform on, scarf still in place. I gaped, pointed.

"Then how come _she_ gets to keep _her_ scarf?"

"Well, um, that would be…"

The darker woman working Reiko's table answered for her. "That would be because the extra clothing is for medical purposes. Which makes her exempt," she added, when I still looked confused.

"Yes," my helper said, returning to her previous dull expression. "That's why."

"Well then what about _her_?" I pointed now to the center booth, where Sayuri Akemi was still arguing, with only slightly more force, with her meek male assistant.

"No, no, it's really okay, I know I need to take them off to comply with…"

"But Miss Sayuri! Your father wouldn't hear of it! As a noble you are entitled to…"

"Yes, but I don't _want_ to…"

My assistant shrugged and gestured at the scene, which explained itself.

In the end, I lost the battle, and surrendered my vest to the shinigami…for the moment. "Miss Sayuri" apparently was forced into a compromise; I saw her later, scarf no longer around her neck, but pink lily still adamantly in place in her hair.

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

After much careful arguing and gentle persuasion (read "I had to throw my nobility at him"…), still I only managed to convince the assistant, a young shinigami from Squad 10, to take away my scarf. The pink lily sat uncomfortably in my hair to the side of my right eye, stinging my self-consciousness while I waited outside on the large enclosed lawn with all the other fully-dressed shinigami recruits.

_I came to escape my nobility, not show it off._

Regardless, it didn't seem I was getting rid of it, at least just yet. And though I could just leave it off tomorrow for classes, I had a feeling – judging from the stares of the others as we waited in the training yard for our instructors – that the damage was already done.

I tried just ignoring them, but it was hard to do when I didn't even have a group of people to talk to, or even feign interest in. I looked once or twice with envy across the lawn at Masuyo Taiki, who somehow, in the short time we'd both been at the Academy complex, had already gathered around him quite the crowd.

I even tried once to join, but the look he gave me, for whatever reason, said quite plainly to stay away.

A bit later, after what appeared to be a bit less than a hundred recruits stood together on the lawn in identical blue or red robes, a squat balding man wearing very short black robes took the stage on a platform which had been erected at the head of the practice area.

"Quiet! Quiet please!" he shouted in a scratchy voice that made it hard to take him seriously. Nevertheless, people quieted, eventually.

"Thank you, children!"

A recruit to my right, who appeared a good deal older than the man on the stage, grunted.

"My name is Sanuki, and I'd like to welcome every one of you to the Shinigami Academy. Here we will train you to be the finest in post-life guidance, and negative spirit extermination. The very finest of you may even mate it so far as the Gotei 13 or even captaincy… although that is rare…"

"Heh. I bet I could take any one of those flimsy captains without even training!" came a male voice from the front of the crowd. It sounded a bit familiar, and I rolled my eyes.

The man on stage sputtered. "Do NOT take the Captains lightly! In fact, a young man like you will not likely even be seated in your division….if a division even takes you."

Mumbles could be heard from the front row, but nothing more was said for the moment.

"In any case," Sanuki-sensei continued, " you will begin your lower level training tomorrow, and after some time will be siphoned into separate classes where _some_ of you will learn more advanced techniques. Your starting classes will be Practical Theory, Politics and Government, Basic Swordsmanship, Unarmed Combat and Kidou."

"Kidou?" came the same voice as earlier. "What kind of sissy class is Kidou? Let's just skip to the sword figh – AAH!"

"Bakudou number one – Sai!"

With a flip of a finger and that mere quick incantation, Sanuki-sensei had the boy in a full body-bind, arms tied behind his back by an invisible but surmiseable source. As the crowd parted a bit around him, I could see him squirming face down on the ground. I now saw, from the blond ponytail, it was Taiki.

"Hey! Old man Tanuki! What'd you do to me? Let me go!"

Everyone laughed.

"That's Sanuki to you, boy, Sanuki-sensei. And what I did was _kidou_. Now, do you intend to clash swords with me in that state? I may not be captain-class, but something tells me I'll have the advantage."

He released Taiki, to the boy's grumbles and the crowd's further laughter, and proceeded to introduce the other sensei. The combat teachers did demonstrations with some of their more advanced students, and the others spoke to us about our bright futures. Finally they let us go for the day to get situated in the student dormitories. Many of the recruits stood around, getting to know new acquaintances or chatting with old ones. I made my way towards the courtyard exit instead, but right as I was about to pass under the archway:

"Akemi. Sayuri Akemi!"

The boy calling out was one of the students who'd been in the demonstration, an upperclassman with fluffy, mussed orange hair falling into his eyes. A small entourage followed him, including a smallish girl who caught my eye, with short silver-blue hair and squared red glasses.

"Do I know you?" I addressed the apparent leader.

"Nope, but you should." He grinned, an attractive but somehow unsettling smile, and stuck his hand out a fit far into my personal space. "Daiho Koji's the name. You can call me Koji though, Miss Akemi."

I took a step backward, eying his outstretched hand without nearing it. "I'd introduce myself, but that seems unnecessary. And you may call me Sayuri."

Koji laughed. "Ah. A true noble indeed."

Two boys behind him snickered. The smallish girl smiled a bit, but looked like she might just feel sorry for me.

"That's not it – I mean, you have no right to be so informal with me," I sputtered.

Koji finally let his hand drop, but still smiled at me. "Now now, Miss Sayuri – as you prefer – us nobles have to stick together. If you'd rather I call you by your family name, I would be pleased to oblige. But people like us, we're different than the rest of the losers here. We're better. And you're one of us. So I just thought I'd extend the invitation."

"Invitation?" I asked, despite my better instincts.

"To lunch – that's all." Koji made a low bow, and the boys behind him laughed again, until he indicated they ought to be joining. "We've got a table in the cafeteria, invitation only, and we'd be pleased if you would join us, Miss Sayuri." He straightened, and gave what looked like the first genuine smile I'd seen from him. "After all, it sucks to be alone here, doesn't it? And it can't hurt to have a few sempai to watch out for you." He turned and waved as the small group followed him though the door. "We'll see you there!"

I looked after him, a bit dumbfounded, although considering that he had a valid point, no matter in how uncouth a way he had presented it. Just as I was about to head off to locate said cafeteria, I felt an unusually rough tap on my shoulder. Turning, I saw a rather angry looking Masuyo Taiki facing me.

"You lied to me."

_Ah…so that's what this is about._

I looked at him for a moment, and sighed. "Look, I'm sorry, Taiki-san. You and your family were very nice to me and I'm more grateful than you know. But you see, I didn't really lie…you just, kind of, assumed, and…"

Taiki thought about it for a moment, and seemed to come to the conclusion that I was right, because his indignant expression only deepened. "You tricked me! How was I supposed to…you know what, forget it. Just leave me alone, okay? You're on your own, kid."

He stormed off in a huff towards his new group of friends, and I sighed again, before turning towards away to find the dormitory. Koji's offer suddenly wasn't sounding so bad.


	4. Chapter 3

Chapter 3

Chapter 3

After confronting Akemi's treacherous betrayal of my kindness, quite ineffectively I might add, I took the long way around the complex to learn my way around, ending at the boy's half of the student dormitories. When I checked in, the secretary shook her head at me.

"What? I do have a dorm room, right? I mean I know I kind of forgot to sign up for one, but it's an awfully long walk from North Rukongai District 45…"

"You do have a room…although you really should have applied for one…it's people like you who give us so much…" She trailed off. "In any case, it looks like your roommates have already picked up the welcome packet with the keys. They should be up there now."

"Roommates?"

"Well, yes."

"I didn't sign up for roommates."

"You didn't sign up, period."

I sighed.

"Look, all first year students are automatically assigned to three-person pods. You wouldn't even have a chance at a single room suite unless you were a third-year student. So I guess you'd better just hope you like your roommates."

I took off toward the stairwell. The more flights of stairs I climbed, the more I worried about what the secretary said. But when I reached the third floor and knocked on the door of 308, a familiar face greeted me from under raggedy purple-blue hair.

Although I wasn't sure which familiar face it was until it greeted me with, "You've _got_ to be kidding me."

"Hiroki!"

"That's Hiroki-_san_, to you, or sama if you prefer," he said, looking at me again like he wasn't quite sure I was sane, or if he wanted to find out, but he let me in. From a short, ratty-looking sofa, Hideki looked over and with a wave said, "Sweet! Taiki-san!" although to be honest he still looked a bit nervous.

Come on. Like I really go around attacking random people for no reason.

…well, certainly not a second time.

I didn't have a lot of belongings in the first place, so it didn't take very long to settle in. My room was on the left-hand side of the pod, and I found my old clothes set on the futon laid out on the floor. I slipped the old green vest on over my robes, set a photo of my makeshift Rukongai family on my desk, and went back out into the common room. Hideki and Hiroki were engaged in a game of chess. Hideki was winning. Hiroki knocked a pawn over with his knight and insisted that chess was a stupid game anyway, and they'd be better off just wrestling for the first week's cleaning duty.

"So…the lady at the front desk said something about a welcome packet…" I said finally after watching them argue for a few moments.

Both stopped and looked at me. "Oh, it's over on the table," the said at once, then both punched at each other with their right hands, and blocked the other's punch with their left hands at the same time. "STOP COPYING ME!"

I blinked, then figured I'd get used to it, and picked up the packet from the low table. Inside was my key, and a bunch of papers about the Academy, the job of a shinigami, and the various divisions and squads of the Gotei 13. I pulled out the week's schedule first. Interested, the two boys gathered on either side of me to read over my shoulders.

"Looks like tomorrow we've got regular classes," I said. "Practical Theory with Hagiwara, Yajima for Hand-to-Hand Combat, and…"

"Sweet!" said Hiroki. "Sword Combat all afternoon! Monday through Thursday! I hope Tebi-sensei lets us use real swords."

"You're kidding, right?" Hiroki said.

"And then the next day is Government…boring….and….oh man! Old man Tanuki for Kidou!"

"What's this?" Hiroki took the paper from me. "Cool! Looks like Friday and Saturday is free combat time, all morning long!" He jabbed at Hideki. "You're going down, little bro."

"We're _twins._"

"Whatever."

"What's that tomorrow after classes?" I asked, scanning the schedule for anything unusual. "Gotei 13 processional. What the…"

"It's when all the captains, vice captains and their divisions parade through Seireitei on their way to the bi-annual Captain's Meeting," came a voice from the doorway. It wasn't until we all looked over and saw that we'd left the common room door open that we spotted the speaker – Kobayashi Kaede, with little Sasaki Ran prancing around her.

"Found you, found you!"

"Hey, Ran-chan!" Hideki walked over and rustled her hair, and she giggled.

The two walked into the room, and Kaede pointed at the schedule Hiroki still held. "Everyone has to attend the processional, even second and third year students, and teachers. It's a way to honor the shinigami who protect Seireitei. Although mostly they want us to go so we get an idea which squad we want to ride along with next week."

"Huh?" I asked, and the same expression was on the boys' faces. Ran was playing with the chess pieces, oblivious.

"Next week we'll all do ride-alongs with the Gotei 13." When we were still clearly confused, Kaede continued. "In groups of 3 or so, we'll each spend time with one of the 13 squads of our choosing, to get a feel for the squad and it's duties, and help us decide which one we'd like to join when we graduate."

"Oh," I said. "So….what if we don't know which one we want?"

Kaede rolled her eyes. "That's what all the reading is for." She gestured at the welcome packet's sheets on the Gotei 13 divisions, their captains and seated officers, and their specialties. "Although if you don't have a preference yet, I'm sure they'll just assign you a division."

"Good," I said, thinking that there was no way I'd read all that material by the time we had to choose.

"So, is Taiki-san your roommate?" little Ran asked from the now-entirely-messed-up chess board.

"Yep," both Hideki and Hiroki answered, then glared at each other.

"You got lucky," Kaede said. "I mean, our roommate is nice enough I guess. She's a second year. But she doesn't really…"

"Talk. At all," Ran finished, shaking her head. "And I don't mean like Raiko-san. Raiko-san is fun!"

"Sumi just seems a little shy," Kaede said. "Or disinterested. I can't quite decide which."

"Speaking of Raiko, we should go find her before hitting up the cafeteria," Hideki said.

Everyone agreed, and we headed off to the girls' side of the dorm to search out Raiko, locking the door behind us.

At least, I'm pretty sure we remembered to lock the door.

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

I reached my dormitory room, 402 on the girls' side of the dormitory, before either of my roommates. Having been essentially locked away in my parents' mansion for most of my life, I didn't really have any friends or relatives with whom I'd prefer to room, so when I sent in my application I'd left it up to the school who I'd be with.

I hadn't brought much with me from my other home; just a few books, some of my most low-key clothing, and a small statue I'd been given when I became an adult of my family. It was a tiny figure of one of my Kuchiki ancestors, the girl long ago with the legendary white sword who had been adopted when she was young, yet became a heroine of the clan. It was meant to be a reminder of our noble roots, I think, some sort of symbol of all our clan had to be proud of…but to me, as I entered Academy, it was a reminder of all I wanted to become. I set it on my bookshelf.

I didn't include any pictures of my family…I had a feeling I'd be seeing them sooner rather than later anyway, whether I wanted to or not.

When I left my private room and went back to the common room, I found my two roommates had arrived. One looked familiar to me – a darker-skinned girl sitting on the couch reading over welcome materials, with long purple hair and a scarf, who I'd seen among Taiki's company earlier. She smiled at me and gave a small bow, but said nothing for the moment. The other girl, so busy moving things into her room that she paid me no attention, at least at the time, was pale and on the smaller side, though well built judging from how she handled her boxes. Her hair was also purple, though on the reddish-plum side and tied back in a tight bun. I thought I caught a flash of thick black-rimmed glasses on her face as she moved into her room.

Weighing that girl's disinterest with the other's friendly if quiet welcome, I took a seat on a floor cushion by the table in the center of the room, and introduced myself. The girl hesitated, then took out a pad of paper and scribbled.

She handed it over, and I read aloud, "Pleased to meet you, Sayuri-san. My name is Kinoyama Raiko, and unfortunately I can't – oh. I see. Well, it's a pleasure to meet you too, Kinoyama-san." I smiled at her, and she returned it. For a few moments we spoke about our roots, I talking and Raiko scribbling with surprising alacrity on her paper pad. She was from Rukongai, West 25th district, which although it was a generally safer area hadn't provided too well for her makeshift family. I was explaining to her my motivation for joining the Academy when our other roommate finally poked her head out of her room, probably wondering why I'd been talking to myself.

"Oh. I see our last roommate is here."

Beside me, Raiko gave her a look that, as far as I'm concerned, quite clearly said, "She's been here since before both of us, if you'd just a little pay attention…"

"I'm Itagaki Ume," she said.

_Itagaki_, I thought. _That sounds familiar. They're a small upper-2__nd__-class clan of nobles if I remember. She'll be from Seireitei then…_

I stood to greet her properly, but before I could say anything, she continued. "Look, I wanted a single room but apparently even nobility can't get what they ask for here, so if both of you would just keep quiet and stay out of my room – not," she looked at Raiko's notepad, "that I expect noise to be a problem – then I'm sure we'll get along just…" She paused again and her eye caught my lily hairpin, and her expression narrowed. "Sayuri."

I nodded. "Sayuri Ak"

"I know who you are. Look, just leave me alone, okay, you spoiled little princess? As far as I'm concerned, I don't have any roommates." She went back into her room and closed the door behind her.

I cursed myself for not having already taken the hairpin off – but let's face it, when you've worn something for over 100 years, even something as obnoxious as a nobility marker, you tend to forget it's there.

Except, of course, for the lovely reminders of people like Itagaki Ume.

Raiko gave me an apologetic look, although what _she _had to be sorry for, aside from being in the same common room as our sour roommate, I wasn't sure.

At that moment a knock came on the door, when Raiko answered, Taiki was on the other side, accompanied by a small crowd, including twin teenage-looking boys and a tiny girl with shockingly blue hair. Taiki noticed me, but crossed his arms and turned away quickly with a huff. Raiko looked back and forth between us for a moment, but when the eldest of the group told her they were going to the cafeteria she shrugged, waved at me kindly, and followed them off. Taiki gave me one last glare before the door shut, although I could have sworn, just for a second, I saw him pause to consider if they ought to be inviting me along as well.

Of course, I could easily have been mistaken.

I decided, instead of eating in the cafeteria, to just eat in my room that day.


	5. Chapter 4

Chapter 4

Chapter 4

It was easier to wake up that next morning than it had been since I came to Soul Society. Let's face it, I loved Gran and Gramps, but they didn't have the most comfortable – or quiet – of housing. And even though I kept telling them I was hungry, they insisted souls didn't need food, and for the most part when we had food I gave it to the sibs. They were adorable; you would have, too.

But the Academy dorms…well, they were well used, but compared to what I was used to they were pretty sweet. A good soft futon bed, shutters that actually kept out the light, walls thick enough to keep out even the noise of twins arguing about who was stronger late into the night. And breakfast! You wouldn't believe how much food they had! I guess people with high spiritual power actually _do_ need to eat or something…in any case, they were definitely prepared to feed an army. Or at least an army in training.

Actually dragging myself to class, though, now that's an entirely different story. There is no way Practical Theory class should be first thing in the morning, ever. Just thinking about it hurts my head. And I mean thinking about going, not thinking about the theories. But with some assistance (and by that I mean little Ran tugging me along by one arm) I made it to our first class and took a seat by the others near the front.

We, the first year students, had been divided into two homerooms for morning classes. Ours was unlucky enough to have Theory in the morning, while the other had combat first and Theory second, once they were more awake, although quite a bit more stinky I suppose. I'm not sure how they divided us into classes, although I'm guessing it was in what order we checked in to get our uniforms, because everyone who had been near me in line was in my homeroom – Kaede and Ran, Hideki and Hiroki, Raiko, and that Akemi girl. Figures. No getting away from her. All in all, there were maybe 35 or 40 students in the class, ranging in appearance from about Ran's age to those who looked much older than the sensei.

The sensei, as it were, was the skinny, stately older man with the long black ponytail who had welcomed us yesterday, Hagiwara. As he walked in, those who had been lounging around took their seats and quieted. Hagiwara then spoke.

"Welcome, all of you, to Practical Theory. This may sound like a very broad topic, and indeed it is. For the next year and a half you will all be studying with me about battle tactics, squad leadership, opponent and ally classification, utilization of resources and the like. Those most advanced of you will, at the end of that year and a half, continue on with me as my Advanced Swordsmanship students…however, that is a story for another day. To start, we will be discussing something most important to any fighter – the initial moment when one realizes one must engage in battle. Lesson one, that is, is sizing up a new situation and developing an initial strategy."

I yawned. The motion must have caught old Hagiwara's eye, but he wasn't quick enough to notice that it was me, so instead he picked on the person nearest to me.

"You, with the purple hair and the scarf. Tell me what is the very first thing one must do when entering an unknown area."

Raiko, beside me, stared him down.

"Well?" The previously calm man was looking a bit agitated. "Please. I know you may all still be quite ignorant, but at least say _something_."

Raiko suddenly burst out in a fury of hand signs which she somehow made to look distinctly angry.

"She says, she wasn't aware that she would have to be prepared for discussion in a lecture class." The small voice was Ran's, and it sounded amused.

"Sign language?" Hagiwara looked at them both. "They sent a deaf student to a lecture class? Honestly, the quality of recruits…"

Raiko made a few more signs, this time directed at Ran, and Ran grinned and nodded gleefully. "I sure can, Raiko-chan!" Beside her, Kaede looked like she had no idea, despite the fact she was the girl's guardian, that she could do anything of the sort. When Raiko then proceeded with another storm of signs, accompanied by a glare at the instructor, Ran added, "She says that she's rather certain, sir, that at least one of the captain class shinigami is deaf, if you please…sir." Ran giggled again. "Wow, I didn't know you could be sarcastic in signs!"

"Well!" Hagiwara now yelled, somehow still primly, at Raiko. "In that case, please answer my previous question!"

Ran watched her, now getting the hang of things and translating as she went. "She says she's mute, not deaf, you little…oooooohhh!! She said a bad wooord!"

I almost fell out of my chair laughing, and most of the class joined in.

Despite his attitude, the sensei didn't really come across as a bad man, and I guess Hagiwara's lesson was actually pretty informative. At least, _I_ felt smarter when we left. Of course he had to go and give us homework on the first day – a few photos of places I'd never seen before that we were supposed to "analyze". Something about terrain advantages, or possible objects that could be used as weapons against us, like boulders or something. It didn't seem too hard.

Honest. No big. I just didn't feel like doing it, that's all.

Anyway, after that we had a short snack break – which I took full advantage of – before moving to the next location on the schedule, Practice Field 2. It was maybe only one sixth the size of the courtyard where we'd had the welcome ceremony the day before, nowhere near large enough for huge numbers of people to battle with weapons, but it seemed like the perfect size for a small class like ours to practice unarmed combat. Which, I guess, was the whole point.

A pile of floor mats sat in the corner of the whitewall-enclosed space, and on top of them, as the class entered, perched a petite man with a girlish face – or was it a petite woman with a very manly figure? – with scraggly blond hair and a aged appearance to his eyes that didn't fit with the rest of him.

He watched us all enter without moving anything but his eyes, and for awhile I was pretty sure no one else noticed him but me. As I stood there watching he caught my eye and winked. I shuddered.

A tug on my uniform caused me to look down. Ran-chan looked back at me, eyes scrunched quizzically. "Hey, Taiki. Whatcha looking at?"

Before I could point, he apparently decided to make his presence known. He disappeared, then reappeared almost instantly behind Ran, and shouting from an inch behind her, "YOU'RE ALL LATE."

_Eeep! He was a girl??_

Because despite all appearances, that was definitely a woman's voice.

Ran jumped about half her own height into the air, then ran and hid herself behind Kaede. Raiko, a few feet away from me, just frowned.

"Excuse me," a mousey boy I'd never noticed before spoke up from the back of class. "But I don't believe we're late."

"Well, Tamotsu," the sensei said, as if she had already memorized all of our names without hearing them, "I wear my watch exactly three minutes and seventeen seconds early, and we shall begin class by _my_ time, so don't any of you forget it!"

The boy looked as if he was about to say something else, but instead took a step back into silence.

"I am Yajima!" sensei shouted over all of our heads. "For those of you who are especially ignorant, this is Unarmed Combat! So – well, get moving!"

Blank stares met this.

"WARM-UPS!!" she shouted again, this time as loud as your average megaphone, and every single person in the room began doing _something_. Although, since very few of us had prior training, and none of us had prior training with Yajima, everyone had different ideas of what "warm-ups" meant.

After a few collisions and one seemingly random fist-fight, Yajima stepped in, shaking her head, and class began.

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

By the time I'd finished my first morning at Academy, I had decided that I would really enjoy my time there. Our Theory instructor was brilliant and methodic, and our Combat sensei was…well, probably certifiably insane, but a good teacher in the end. By the first day we had all perfected break-falls, basic stances and technically perfect punches, plus three different ways to block them. I was exhausted, and our day was only half over.

Over a hundred years of sitting on my rear end drinking the tea that my mother forced down my throat certainly hadn't done much for my physical conditioning. Good thing I'd also spent the last several climbing fences and walls and sprinting away from people who might recognize me outside of Seireitei. My life so far hadn't been a total loss.

Still, I was nervous about sword combat that afternoon, and as I entered the cafeteria for lunch, something that I'd heard the other day came back to me: "It can't hurt to have a few sempai to watch out for you." I grabbed a salad and some fruit from the salad bar – it wouldn't do to have a large lunch before another combat class – then scanned the room. Sure enough, outside the cafeteria at one of the outdoor lunch tables, I could see the orange-red shock of hair that belonged to Daiho Koji.

As I approached, I saw Koji's picnic table was a larger one – it seated maybe ten or fifteen, and was packed nearly full. Koji half-stood, one foot propped on the bench, perched on the edge of the table and – to my dismay – was deep in conversation with Itagaki Ume, who stood before him, batting her eyes, motioning at the one empty seat across the table from him.

Before I could change my mind, the smaller girl with the bluish-silver hair, who'd been with Koji the day before, turned in her seat and spotted me. She smiled kindly and waved, which caught Ume's attention and sent her glare in my direction. This, in turn, caused Koji to turn and finally notice my approach. He moved immediately to his feet and rushed to greet me with a bow.

"Miss Akemi – ah, I mean Miss Sayuri," he amended at my frown. "I thought perhaps you had decided not to take us up on our offer, when you didn't show yesterday."

"My apologies," I said, not bothering to give an excuse.

"Well, no matter. You're here now! Please, sit." He gestured at his table, where Ume was just about to take the last remaining seat.

Koji moved swiftly to intervene, sweeping an arm around her back and motioning, with the other, to the rest of the cafeteria. "Ah! Miss Ume, I am terribly sorry for the inconvenience, but it seems we will be needing that seat after all. You know how it is, prior engagements and all. You're more than welcome to try again some other day – really, very sorry…" He ushered the indignant Ume unceremoniously away from the table before she could protest.

As I took the seat, I had a feeling I'd be hearing about it later.

"Allow me to introduce you to the crew," Koji said, returning to the opposite side of the table but still standing. "On my right, my right-hand-man if you will, is Hata Mamoru." The boy nodded quietly but confidently at me, before returning to discussion with the person on his right. "On my left, Araki Seiji." The older boy looked me up and down, but said nothing. "On the far end of the table, Kuroki Izanagi, or Iza-kun." The smallish blonde boy gave me a distinct "I'm cool and you know it" grin, despite being visibly younger than me. "And on your left, Miss Jakushi Chie."

The silver-blue-haired girl who had waved me over initially smiled at me. "Welcome to Academy!"

"Thanks." Whatever reservations I had towards Koji, I didn't have towards this girl. She seemed…genuine, somehow.

Chie and I chatted lightly for awhile while I ate. From what I could tell, the four Koji introduced made up his core group. However, he did make sure to introduce me to several others at the table: a scared-looking six year old girl with knee-length black hair and incredibly wide eyes named Fon Taki – "You know, her older brothers are current Captain and Vice Captain of the 2nd Division" – a teen with scary green eyes called Kujira Zen – "Yajima-sensei's godson, of course" – and a girl about my and Chie's age who would not stop yapping at Zen despite his adamant disinterest, Yamato Emi – "Of the Yamato nobility, surely you've heard of them" (I hadn't). I was beginning to spot a pattern in Koji's acquaintances.

"So, Miss Sayuri," Koji began.

"I…"

He stopped. "Yes?"

"I guess…you can call me Akemi." The advantage of proper etiquette and respect was quickly giving way to the disadvantage of name recognition. That, and being the only one in the group referred to by her surname.

Koji smiled almost hungrily. "Ah, of course. Miss Akemi, I was about to ask if you would be attending the processional this evening."

"Isn't it mandatory?"

Beside me, Chie chuckled, but said nothing.

"Well yes, but what I really meant was, are you going with anyone."

"…with?" _What is this, some sort of ball? Do I need a partner?_

"You know what this is all about, right? You'll be starting to plan your future very soon. Which Division you'll join, you know. I'm sure you've all been reading up on the Divisions and their specialties, but tonight is the only time you'll be able to actually see them, and the Captains and Vice-Captains."

"And?"

"And, don't you want to go with your sempai, who know about the Divisions already and can enlighten you as the procession goes?"

_Oh. He has a point._

"Well, I wasn't going with anyone, but…"

"You'll go with us, won't you?" Koji smiled expectantly.

"Sure. Why not?"

"Great." He stood, and I noticed that like me all the others had finished eating. "Best be getting to class, but we'll meet you at Gate 2 this evening. And thanks again for joining us today. You know you're always welcome."

Koji left, and everyone at the table followed after, Chie waving goodbye over her shoulder as they went.

I followed suit, although my destination was different; our afternoon class every day was an extra-long swordsmanship class, held in the main courtyard and with both first-year homerooms at once. Although I welcomed the anonymity that came with such numbers, I was still a little nervous. As a consequence, I loitered in the hallways a bit, and ended up being one of the last to enter the courtyard.

The sensei, a man I recognized from around Seireitei named Tebi, had several assistants with him and was already sorting people into smaller groups or eight or ten with one assistant at the head of each, and spreading them around the field. The poor instructor looked a little haggard already under the weight of so many new students. As he walked my direction, he pulled a white bandana out from his instructor's robes and wiped his brow, then wrapped it around his head.

"All right, those of you still without a group, over here please."

A few stragglers walked over from various corners of the courtyard.

"You, you, you, and you. You're one group. Oh," he said, as two boys rushed in, breathless – Taiki, and one other. "You two must be…" He checked a list. "Masuyo Taiki and Saito Hiroki." When they nodded, he put them in my group.

That made my group me, Ume, Raiko, Taiki, Hiroki, and a little blue-haired girl called Ran.

"Hiroki-nii-chan, you're late," the girl said, wagging a finger at him, but before he could respond, Tebi-sensei called us to order. After introducing himself, he used one of his assistants to help him demonstrate the most basic parts of swordsmanship – stance (which we'd spent some time on with Yajima), how to hold the sword, the first basic slashing motion (overhead) and the first basic block to counteract it. He showed us the set of drills we'd be working on that day, then let us remove back to our smaller groups to train.

There was a moment or two of chaos while each of us was handed our own wooden practice sword. I had a feeling we wouldn't be handling real blades for a year, at least, but the bokken still felt nice in my hands. Almost like a natural extension of them. Like I'd held a sword a thousand times before, even though I never once had done so.

Taiki was tossing his in the air, flipping it in circles – until it fell and hit Hiroki on the head. Hiroki then retaliated with the one single motion he'd been taught, and since Taiki's sword was laying on the packed dirt, he could do nothing to stop Hiroki from smacking his head with the bokken.

"Ow! Hey, what was that for?"

"What do you mean, what was it for, clumsy?"

Before anything could happen, Tebi-sensei walked over and pushed them apart. "Practice, boys! Drills! None of this lolling around…although, Mr. Saito, that was quite an excellent overhead slash."

Hiroki smirked.

"Now, pair up, would you? And you two boys should probably pick different partners…"

Ran chose Hiroki, and Taiki (after giving me an evaluative look) paired with Raiko, leaving Ume to me. Of course.

She looked at me, sighed and shrugged, then took her stance for the hardest of the three drills we'd been given.

"I think we're supposed to start at the beginning," I said.

"Hmph. I'm sure you're supposed to. But I hardly need to practice those sort of basics. My family's been preparing me for the role of shinigami since I could walk. These sort of basic drills are cake."

I looked over at Tebi, who was supervising our group personally; he was momentarily distracted, checking to be sure the other groups were doing as they'd been told. "Fine then. We'll do it your way, and I can practice the beginning drills when we switch partners." A quick glance at the others, Taiki and Ran struggling just to hold their swords right, hinted that I'd have more than ample opportunity.

"Good." Ume moved back into position, then charged with an overhead slash. Without thinking, I stepped to the side, hit her with my own overhead before she even figured out where I was, and fell back into stance with a single deep breath.

"That was NOT the drill!" Ume screeched.

"Incredible! Very well done!" It was Tebi, who apparently had turned just in time to see my accidental evasion attack.

"Oh…well, sorry."

"No no, not at all. Although I think your group," he looked specifically at Ume,

"could still do with a little more practice on the first two drills. Your form, Miss Itagaki, is a bit sloppy yet."

"But…"

"Get to work." He shook his head and sighed, turning to examine the other pairs.

Practice proceeded that way for the entire afternoon. I eventually paired with everyone, except Taiki; when it was his turn to pair up with me, he made Raiko do it again. I didn't mind, though. Raiko was new to swords like me, but she focused a lot on proper form, which made her a good partner. By the time we left, we'd learned three basic slashes and corresponding blocks for each, and we'd even started adding in some very basic footwork. I enjoyed Swordsmanship; it was probably my favorite class so far.

After class, as I was helping Tebi-sensei put away all the bokken, I overheard Taiki and his group of friends as they passed.

"Look at her…she's such a suck-up."

"You know," Kaede said, "after all the trouble you and Hiroki caused over there, it probably wouldn't hurt you guys to be helping out too. I mean, come on, a bokken fortress?"

"It was hardly a fortress…really more of a pile," Taiki said. "And besides, we were on a break."

"That's hardly…" Kaede started, but trailed off.

"Why do you care so much what that noble girl does, anyway?" Hiroki's twin asked.

"I don't! It's just that she's a liar and a suck-up."

There was silence, then the little girl spoke up. "Raiko-chan says you sure talk about her a lot for someone who doesn't care, and anyway she's pretty nice really…yeah, Raiko, I think so too. She was really helpful when she was my partner!"

Taiki grumbled something, but the group had gone too far for me to hear any more of what they said.

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I rushed through dinner and a shower that evening and hurried to the gate where, as promised, Koji and his crew were waiting to take me to the processional.

"Hey, good, you're here!" he called out when I approached. "We'd better hurry, or we won't get a place to stand with a good view."

True to those words, when we arrived at the entrance to the Court of Pure Souls, the crowd was packed on either side of the roadway. Koji managed somehow to get us far enough to the front of the crowd that we could see. Only moments later, before he could even ask me how Swordsmanship had gone, the big gates opened and the shinigami began marching through, in strict organized brigades, each one headed by a seated officer, each Division by two shinigami – a white-coated Captain, and their Vice.

At the head of the entire processional was an entirely-too-old man with a white beard; his Vice was much younger and had bright yellow hair and a large, almost cleaver of a sword.

"That's the Commander General," Koji informed me. "The head of Division 1 is always the Commander General. This is the first time I've seen him for a year… nobody really knows much about him, except that he's ridiculously strong."

"Funny, he doesn't look it," I said, but even as I said it I could feel the spiritual power in the air ripple as he passed.

After Division 1, according to Koji's "right-hand man" Mamoru-kun, came Division 2 and the special ops, headed by Fon Akihiko who looked no older than Ran and his older brother Kazuki as Vice. I'd lived my whole life in Seireitei, but it was still hard to believe that someone so young (and he was a noble, so it wasn't mere appearance) could hold so much power.

After that, Captain Sakurako Amaya, with a beautiful pink-tinted saber at the ready, and Vice Aiden O'Hare, of Division 3. Then the Healers, Division 4, headed by Captain Haaka and Vice Captain Odayakana. Then 5th, Ishibashi Madoka and Tanizawa Shuji.

By this point, I was admittedly only half-listening to Koji and his friends. I figured that I would choose my squad based on the reading materials we were given on their specialties, not based on appearance alone.

"Look, though," Koji said, gesturing out at the passing horde, "these guys don't really matter."

"I thought you said that was the Commander General back there. And you can't really argue that Healers aren't important either."

"That isn't what I mean. I told you, right, Miss Akemi? You're here to help pick your future Division."

"And?"

"That," he said, gesturing at the approaching 6th Division, "is your future Division."

"What do you mean by that?"

"6th Division is the Noble's Division," Chie said quietly from my side. "Captain Watabe doesn't accept any non-nobles onto the Division at all. She's an amazing fighter. It's every noble's dream to be accepted onto her squad."

"For someone like you, there's really no question," Koji said. "You need to be on her Division. And so you'd really better just sign up there for the ride-along. None of the other Divisions really matter for you, aside from Captain Watabe Amaterasu's."

The approaching Captain wore long, flowing white robes over her shinigami outfit. Her chestnut hair was naturally curly and reached her waist. Her face was beautiful, for sure, but seemed somehow fake and unapproachable, as if she was quite certain of how far below her everyone in the crowd was. For no apparent reason, she released her soul slayer, and the katana shone so brightly I could barely look at her.

I didn't like her. Deep, deep in my gut I didn't like her at all.

"Who's that?" I asked, pointing at the Division's Vice. She was a smaller, unassuming girl who couldn't be much older than me, black hair trimmed neatly and falling right around her face, with a small flare at the shoulders. She was pretty, as her Captain, but in a much quieter way…she didn't flaunt anything, appearance or attitude, and though she walked with confidence she looked as if she'd rather be somewhere less profile.

"No one important," Koji said.

"Well, she's the Vice, isn't she? I mean, she's got the wooden arm identifier."

Araki Seiji, who hadn't spoken a word so far, snorted.

"She's new," Mamoru-kun said. "Captain didn't pick her, the Commander General ordered it."

"I didn't even know that was possible."

"What Commander General says is law, man," the younger Iza-kun said.

"Her name is Mori, I think," Chie added so that only I could hear, when no one else could be bothered to identify her.

I watched the 6th Division pass, knowing that if this was the Noble's Division, it would be most certainly my future – my parents would insist upon it. However, it wasn't the flashy, brightly shining Captain who caught my eye, nor gave me hope that my future wasn't to be so bleak after all.

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

The usual crew came out for the Processional. At Kaede's assistance, we got there way too frikking early, so we had to wait around for a really long time. I guess it was good though, since it was already so packed that little Ran couldn't see, so I had to let her sit on my shoulders. As each Division passed, Kaede read us their profiles off of her little Welcome Packet sheets of paper. By the time we got to "Matsuda Isamu and Hozumi Haruka of the 7th Division, specializing in mid-range weaponry and known to choose recruits who are up for a challenge," I was getting a bit tired of it.

"Really. Did you have to bring those along? I mean what does it matter if we know all the Captains' names anyway? They all wear those odd white jackets and have enough spirit pressure to kill a small child, it's not like we're going to mistake them for someone else."

"Unlike you, Taiki, some of us actually do our homework."

"Homework?" Hideki asked. "Wait, you don't mean there's going to be a quiz on this later, do you?"

Kaede shrugged, and Hideki looked about as nervous as I felt.

"I don't know about you," Hiroki said, "but I want to know who the competition is. These guys are the strongest shinigami in the universe. We're gonna have to beat them someday, if we want to be Captains."

"Who would want that?" I asked. "A whole lot of responsibility equals no fun at all. I'd rather just be strong enough to beat them."

"Good luck with that," Kaede said. "Oh, here comes the 8th Division. Headed by Captain Koga Satoru, and Vice Captain Kinjo Yuudai."

"Get a load of that sword!" Hiroki said, pointing at the oversized Vice's giant, blunt, rectangular hunk of a weapon.

"I don't like him…" On top of me, Ran pointed at the captain and shuddered. I couldn't blame her – the young man had a blood-red scarf wrapped around most of his head, and gave off a really creepy sort of aura. I noticed the crowd, and even his own Division, seemed to be giving him more room than any of the other Captains.

"Good gods," Kaede said suddenly, scanning her info sheets. "That Captain. He used to be the Vice of the Research and Development division – that's 12th Division," she added when I gave her a slightly dazed look of bewilderment, "and it says here he forced his bankai. Drove him completely insane." She frowned at the Captain as he passed. "Well he certainly looks the part."

"He feels like it too," Ran said.

The next two squads (9's Sugioka Iwao and his two 3rd-seats currently vying for Vice postion, Saka Nobu and Nagataki Kaoru; then 10's Jonas Gilcrest and Karen Mina) passed us before anyone aside from Kaede said anything. Then, suddenly:

"Hey," Hiroki said. "Where's Raiko?"

I looked around. "That's weird. She was here earlier."

"Are you sure?" Hideki asked. "She is kinda…quiet."

"She was here," Kaede said. "I noticed her take off awhile back…somewhere around 3rd or 4th Division. Not sure why, though."

Ran suddenly hopped up and down, almost falling off my shoulders. "Here she comes!"

Sure enough, Raiko was making her way patiently and very slowly back through the crowd from the direction of the Court of Pure Souls, where all the Divisions were currently headed.

"Raiko! Where were you?" Ran demanded.

Raiko made a few signs, halted as if making up her mind about something, then made a few more.

"She says she….oooh gotcha, sure….she, uh, had to go to the bathroom?"

I tried to give Ran a weird look, but couldn't with her on my shoulders, so I directed it at Raiko instead. She shrugged.

"Guys! You're not paying attention," Kaede said. "You already missed 11th division, and I'd think you of all people would want to know about them, Taiki…and Hiroki, actually."

"Who?" we both said.

"Heh, who's the twin now?" Hideki said under his breath.

"They're fighting specialists," Kaede said. "Ito Daisuke is Captain and Murakami Ai is his Vice."

"I don't care who they are, really," Hiroki said.

"Yeah," I agreed. "But a fighting division does sound pretty cool. Ooh, look at these next guys!"

'Guys' was a relative term, because the Captain of the 12th Division was female, silver hair in a weird sort of permanently windswept position and these wacky goggles on. I was pretty sure her Vice was a boy, but he was young and his blue hair was pretty long, so it was anyone's guess.

"They're the – "

"Research and Development Division, we know, you already told us," Hideki said.

"Er…right," Kaede said. "But I didn't tell you who they were."

"Well get on with it, if you must," said Hiroki.

But it was Ran who piped up, "Captain Chiba Izumi and Vice Captain Kurotsuchi Takumi!"

Everyone stared at her; I tried.

"What?" she said, pouting. "Kaede's not the only one who does her homework." After a minute, she sighed. "Okay…Raiko signed it to me."

Raiko winked at her.

"And here comes the last group – finally!" I said. "Who's the 13th Division?"

"Captain Mochizuki Airi and Vice Shihouin Tsubasa. According to this, the Vice was chosen very recently, only a few years out of Academy too. They don't seem to have a specialty, although it says something about 'mod-souls' here…"

"I don't know what those are…" Ran said. "And Raiko says she doesn't either."

"We can ask in class tomorrow," Kaede said.

Ran nodded.

"Okay Ran," I said. "It's over, so you can get down now."

Ran hesitated.

"What is it?"

"Can you give me a piggy back ride back to the dormitory? Pleeeease?"

"Fine," I said. "But no more for the rest of the week."

"The whole week?" she whined, but accepted the offer, and in no time at all we were back at the dorms. I had to get a full night's sleep if I was going to be conscious for class the next morning, after all.


	6. Chapter 5

Chapter 5

AN: The joke going on in this chapter, if you don't speak Japanese, is that Sanuki is a name, but "tanuki" means "raccoon", which is why Taiki's always calling the sensei that…in case you didn't know ;)

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Chapter 5

When I woke the next morning and entered the common room, as usual Ume was nowhere in sight. Raiko, however, was already up, dressed, and looking more than ready for her second day of classes.

The morning before, much to my surprise, Raiko had asked me to join her for breakfast. While the invitation had been unexpected, and there were a few awkward moments of silence (okay, so it was silent whenever it was Raiko's turn to speak, but you know what I mean), I enjoyed her company. I decided, this morning, to return the invitation.

"Morning, Raiko-san!"

She looked over me and waved her own morning greeting.

"Want to eat together again? I'm starved."

She smiled and nodded her agreement. We grabbed our schoolbags, Raiko snagged up her "talking" notebook and pen, and we made our way out the door, down stairs toward the cafeteria.

As I watched her clutching her notebook, probably her most valuable possession in a world where so few people could understand her, I smiled. "You know, it's really lucky for you that Sasaki-san speaks sign language! I wonder where she picked it up?"

Raiko smiled, then pulled out the pen and began to scribble. After a moment, she handed over the paper: I don't know...I suppose I could ask her, I'm curious, but more relieved that I won't have to face hand cramps day after day due to writing.

"It certainly is a rare skill to pick up. I'll try to learn some for you, too," I said. "Although I warn you I'm poor with languages." It was a little embarrassing to admit, but true…one of those lessons at nobility that I couldn't catch onto when I was young.

Raiko giggled silently, then stopped herself, and handed me the paper pad once more: I'm sorry...I don't mean to laugh, but if you would like me to teach you, I can try. I'm sure Ran-chan wouldn't mind helping. It took me awhile to learn it though...nearly a year before I came even close to fluent.

"Well, I'd love to try! That way if I ever come across a soul in the Living World too..." At that, we both arrived at the cafeteria, and our conversation was put on hold while we lined up for food and loaded up our trays. We then searched out a suitable table.

"Over here look good?" I asked, nodding my head at an out-of-the-way four-top.

Raiko nodded, and we made ourselves comfortable.

I took a good look at my breakfast and nearly drooled: scrambled eggs, bacon, salmon, rice and bowl of miso soup. "The food is sure good here...I can't believe they'd give us both western style and traditional breakfasts in the same meal! This is almost better food than I had at home."

Raiko scribbled: They make it quite well. I will admit I was a little doubtful...

I nodded, and between bites of bacon said, "The government here relies almost entirely on the shinigami, so the pour a lot of money into this school. The safety of both worlds relies on how well they train us." I grinned, probably giving away a bit of my nerves. "A lot of pressure, huh..."

A lot, indeed...I do wonder how many will crack though...? Raiko wrote.

"I'm sure some will. I hear the graduation rate lately hasn't been that high...somewhere around 50 to 75."

That's a depressing thought, she wrote.

"I suppose it is. But if you believe in yourself and keep pushing forward, I'm sure you'll be fine."

Both of us sat in silence for a few minutes, cleaning our plates and sipping our miso soup. After what looked like some consideration, Raiko scribbled something on her pad, and passed it to me:

Hey...forgive me if I'm being rude...but you and Taiki have met before...right?

I laughed, dryly. "You could say that." I poked at the remainder of my scrambled eggs with my chopsticks, but when Raiko continued to watch me, I added, "Yes, we've met. Remember how I told you why I joined Academy?"

To escape, she wrote.

"Yeah. Well, let's just say that coming here isn't the only thing I've done to escape the nobles' life."

Raiko considered, and nodded. I could see it coming together in her mind already, judging from the expression of understanding on her face.

I laughed a bit. "My parents would die if they knew, but for the past few years, I've been sneaking out - out of Seireitei, into Rukongai. And of course, if I was spotted I'd be in loads of trouble and I'd never be able to go again...so I had to go in disguise." I eyed her as she finished up her bacon. "I think you probably see where I'm going with this."

Somewhat, she wrote. You met Taiki on one of those excursions, didn't you? In disguise.

"That's right." I sighed and finished up the last bit of rice in my bowl. "He was so nice; he even invited me to dinner with his family. But I had to leave when the recruiters came from him, before I could explain or even thank him…"

So he found out that you were a noble on the first day of class, and the rest is history?

"It's not like you think," I said. "That is, I didn't lie to him. I told him I had a family somewhere in Soul Society, and that it was far away from where he lived, but as for me being a lost Rukongai soul, he just assumed. So when he found out, I guess he felt..."

Betrayed, Raiko wrote.

"Yeah."

You didn't lie, she wrote. You were just vague.

"I had to be. If I was caught..." I sighed again. "And I certainly never thought I'd see him again. But...I do feel bad, you know. I don't blame him for hating me."

Raiko shook her head, and scribbled: He's being overdramatic. I don't think he hates you.

"Really…?" It was hard to believe her, given his vehement opposition to my presence under any circumstance.

Raiko smiled, as if she knew something I didn't. I think he's hurt, she wrote, but I also think he'd get over that if you had a chance to explain.

I got the distinct impression that Raiko was thinking deeply about something, or planning something perhaps, but I let it go. "Thanks, Raiko-san. And I'm sorry to get you caught in the middle of all this."

She shook her head. Please, she wrote, do not worry about it, Akemi-san. To be honest, it's nice to know why he was acting all huffy about it.

"Well then, I'm glad you asked. I just wish Taiki would let up. It's hard enough to make friends here who don't care about class." My food was done, but I settled back in my chair, in no hurry to arrive early to class and glad for the conversation, however unconventional.

Raiko nodded, right fingers lightly brushing against her neck, then wrote: Is it that big of a deal here, nobility?

"Not normally, I guess. I mean, it's a big deal among the nobility. But they don't really mix with "commoners" so there's never much of a chance for it to be a problem. True nobility, that is upper 2nd class and 1st class nobility, never leave Seireitei, and commoners aren't allowed in, aside from those in Academy. Lower class normally can't be separated from commoners by appearance – the only difference is that nobility are born here - so it's not such a big thing for them. Just here, where they mix…"

Raiko nodded thoughtfully, then looked puzzled. She wrote, I didn't realize souls could be born.

"Yes. It makes up for those spirits who are here who "die", and therefore cease to exist. It maintains the balance of souls. But it's rare. The real difference is, nobility is born here and commoners aren't. That's all it is, really.

"It's just that from as far as anyone can remember the nobility have status and riches...it gives them an advantage, supposedly. So...there's a lot of resentment. And with the way a lot of nobility act, I'd say it's deserved..."

I could have sworn Raiko snorted, despite her silence. Her notebook page read: Like our 'charming' roommate...

I smirked. "Yeah. Like that. But it kind of gives all of us a bad name. And here at school, where we are all forced to interact, it tends to be more apparent."

Raiko finished off her bacon while writing: If it makes you feel any better, you didn't give off that 'I'm nobility and therefore better than you' vibes when I met you.

I smiled at that, eyes on my empty plate. "I'm glad. As far as I'm concerned, when I'm here, I'm just a new recruit like everyone else. Just like I wanted to be."

Although some would beg to differ, Raiko wrote, that's a good outlook.

Before we could continue, the approach of a familiar face caught my eye. Raiko followed my glance as Jakushi Chie walked up to our table.

"Akemi-san! Good morning!"

I returned her smile – it would be hard not to. "Good morning – Chie, was it?"

"That's right. Hey, I just wanted to tell you that we were all glad you spent lunch with us yesterday, and the offer's still open for today… if you want. I'm sure Koji will be glad to have you there again. Me too, of course."

I nodded. "I'll think about it. Thanks, Chie."

"I'm looking forward to it." She smiled cheerily, waved, and walked off.

I watched her go, then noticed Raiko had been scribbling.

Made acquaintances already?

"Sort of. Honestly, I almost didn't remember her name. But I like her; she's a little more personable than Koji."

Raiko laughed her silent laugh. Who, or what, she asked, is this Koji?

"One of our sempai," I answered. "He was one of them who did the demonstration for us on opening day, and he escorted me to the Procession yesterday. Apparently he's trying to collect me or something."

Like a doll? How odd.

Raiko tilted her head a bit and flashed an amused grin.

Is he nobility?

"Yeah, although I've never heard of him, so he must be of the Rukongai variety. I don't really like the way he talks but..."

But? Raiko asked.

I shrugged, honestly. "I don't know. He seems harmless enough, and it's not often that recruits are offered assistance from sempai around here. If he'll really help me out, then, why not?"

Raiko paused, shaking out her right hand and transferring her pen to the other; she must have been cramping up.

I suppose so…

"Not only that," I said. "They may have done it in an odd way, but Koji's group were the first ones to welcome me here, even before you."

Raiko's eyes shifted off the other direction for a moment, and the conversation ended there.

"Hey now, don't feel bad about that," I said, giving her a playful jab on the arm, and she cheered visibly. "I just met them first." Looking over, I finally noticed the clock. Chie had probably been heading to class when she stopped by. "Uh oh, we'd better hurry. And I think I forgot my notebook in the room…"

I'll meet you in class, Raiko wrote. Sit with me today?

"Taiki…"

…can sit elsewhere if he wants to so badly.

I grinned. "Sounds good. I'll see you there."

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

I know it may be hard to believe, but there is a class that is even more boring than practical theory in this place. And wouldn't you know, it has to be first thing in the morning, too. Again.

Politics and Government. Ugh. Do we really have to learn this stuff?

I'll give the sensei credit; it would be hard to match his enthusiasm, even in a place like this. Not long after we'd all gotten settled in our seats – and, okay, I may have been taking a little nap – this young guy with short, dirty blond hair and a goofy grin on his face comes bursting into the room, raving about what wonderful things we're about to begin studying together.

If you ask me, he was trying a little too hard. I'm pretty sure he knew exactly how dull his topic was. But I guess I can't blame him for trying.

It wasn't until Raiko walked up to the teacher, Ran in tow, to explain her situation before it could cause her any trouble like the previous morning, that I realized she had been sitting elsewhere. Nanba-sensei, as he was called, nodded enthusiastically, patted Ran on the head, and sent them back to their seats. As it turned out, those seats were behind me. Next to Raiko, on either side, were Ran and Akemi. Just my luck that Raiko was bonding with Akemi. And worse than that, Kaede always sat with Ran, and Hideki sat with Kaede…leaving only Hiroki at my side that lesson.

Nanba spent the majority of the lesson talking about something we already knew, the organization of the Gotei 13, from the unranked shinigami, to the 20 ranked shinigami, the Vice Captain and Captain, and specialization of all the Divisions. I suppose it was a good choice overall, as it was something bound to interest a group of shinigami trainees. Or at least it would have been, had we not all read the material we'd been given prior to the Processional.

Okay, so I didn't read any of that. But Kaede read it out loud for us, so, good enough right?

I was sort of paying attention…

Either way, it seemed a good enough reason for me to zone out during the lesson and exchange cartoon drawings with Hiroki based on descriptions of the Divisions. That is, it did until Nanba-sensei informed us that we'd have a quiz over the material during the next class. Good thing I knew Kaede and Hideki would be willing to study with us, even though I knew Kaede would pretend to be exasperated.

Once we were all filing out to another one of the little practice fields for our next class, though, I remembered where we were going. To Kidou, that is. I had a pretty good idea what I was in for the moment we walked through the gateway, when I suddenly seized up and landed face-first in the dirt.

Ran laughed so hard she had to sit down to catch her breath and wipe tears from her eyes. As for me, I quickly felt the invisible bonds break. Standing and dusting myself off, I saw the portly, balding form of Old Man Tanuki walking my way, chuckling heartily.

"So we meet again, Masuyo Taiki."

"How do you know my – ?"

"Utterly unimportant!" Sanuki-sensei clapped a hand on my back, causing me to stumble forward. "So, are you ready to begin studying the wide world of attack and defensive spells?"

Ran was back on her feet, and now jumping up and down enthusiastically. "Show me again! I wanna do that too!"

"Ran," Kaede warned, but I could hear barely restrained laughter in her voice. She was probably thinking that the binding spell would come in useful during Hideki and Hiroki's rowdier arguments.

I was about to tell Sanuki that I was definitely not ready to learn sissy little spells so I could stake my life on their working mid-battle – I've always been a kind of, hit first and think later kind of guy, so I didn't think kidou would really be my style. Not that I knew much about it. But seeing as he already seemed to have something out for me, I just crossed my arms and glared at him out of the corners of my eyes.

The sensei moved away from me to pat little Ran on the head. "Of course, child. I'll teach you how to do that and more! In fact, what I just performed is the very first kidou – that is, the one we will be learning this very day."

"Hooray!"

In a matter of moments, Sanuki-sensei had us all lined up and began running us through the motions – stance, hand signs, and the best positions for "mental concentration" – as if there were any other kind.

"This first kidou, the spell of binding," he lectured us, "is first on the list to learn because its incantation and movements are both quite simple. The movements you've just gone through, if you practice them well, will continue to serve you well throughout your kidou training. The incantation, however, will be different with each spell, so learn them well."

In the line, I had Hideki and Hiroki on either side of me. I turned to Hiroki. "How hard could these 'incantations' be, really?" I asked. "I mean come on. One whole word, big deal."

"No kidding."

Two spots to my right, Raiko glared at me, and I realized my mistake. As a means of apology, I asked Sanuki, "Hey, old man! Is there any way to do this without saying the incantation?"

"Ho ho, already afraid you won't be able to remember them, huh?" He laughed. "Well I'm afraid you're out of luck. You have to know the incantation to perform the kidou, Taiki-kun."

I glared, but he paid no attention.

"What I think he means is, is there any way to perform the kidou without physically saying the words?" It was Akemi, from the other side of Raiko. I tried glaring at her too, but she wasn't paying any more attention to me than Sanuki.

"Aha! Why yes, my girl, there certainly is. You must learn to truly internalize the incantation, and it takes a great deal more focus of both mind and power, but there is a way. Only the most advanced students manage to pull it off, however."

Raiko looked frustrated, and no one said any more on the subject, for at that point Sanuki decided we should line up and actually try binding some dummy targets with the spell.

We lined up in groups of three or four across from a row of wooden dummies hanging limp from stands.

"These are your targets," Sanuki said, firing off a binding spell at the one furthest from him. Its wooden limbs seized up and twitched. "A correct shot will have that result. If you have trouble at a distance, try the spell at point blank first and work further away. But be careful with your aim! If you hit another student with an inexperienced spell, it could cause a lot of difficulties." He motioned, and the dummy fell limp again. "Don't forget to release when you're finished! If you manage it in the first place, that is."

He was looking at me with that last line, so just to prove him wrong I muscled my way to the front of the line and took the starting pose. Without a second's hesitation, and from full distance, I shouted, "Bakudou number one, Sai!"

I felt a ripple of power move from my shoulders, through my arms and outward. But before I had a chance to gloat, that pressure blast moved outward in every direction, knocking the 16 people nearest me onto the ground. And not, as it were, with any of their limbs bound.

As I laughed nervously and the larger half of my class crawled to their feet with angry glances my direction, Sanuki shook his head.

"No, no, not that way at _all_, Masuyo Taiki. You must _focus,_ focus!"

Hiroki, one of those who had been bowled over and only a few feet to my right, stood, and retaliated with his own binding spell.

"Sai!"

I remained standing, but both my arms were linked behind my back.

"Hey, watch it!" I yelled.

"Um, er, very good," Sanuki stuttered, waving his arms in front of him, "but it really isn't a good idea to attack other…"

"I wanna try!" From nowhere, little Ran appeared and sent a wild shot at Hideki. Instead, it hit the teacher and sent him sprawling and sputtering to the ground.

"Would you all please…!"

Taking advantage of the chaos, several other classmates attempted shots, and everywhere energy pulsed and people (and targets) fell to the ground in varying states of being bound.

I may have fired a few extra shots in the commotion…but I figured old man Tanuki deserved it.

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

After Taiki's mishap sent our Kidou class into complete disarray, it took the instructor a good fifteen minutes to calm everyone down again and being a slightly more orderly practice session. When my moment finally arrived, I took a position about halfway to the target, spread my legs into a wide, solid stance, and took a deep breath.

_Concentrate the power in your center, focus through your arms, state the incantation and 'press' it at the target…_

"Sai!"

The shot didn't veer, nor explode, but it barely even shook the target.

I stared blankly ahead at the barely swinging wooden dummy without moving.

"Perhaps you should try a little closer to the target next time, Miss Sayuri," I heard Sanuki-sensei say, before he turned his attention to another student.

I worked my way to the back of my line, frowning. As I passed, I heard Ume comment under her breath, "Better luck next time, Little Miss Perfect."

In the line to my right, Raiko gave my a sympathetic smile and signed something.

"She says, don't worry about it much, it's only our first day," Ran, in line behind Raiko, translated for me.

"But…I did exactly what he told us to," I said, shaking my head. "I don't know what's wrong. In Swords I did what I was told, followed the motions, and it all went fine…"

Raiko shook her head at me and signed again.

"She says this is different," Ran said. "It's not just motion, it's mind and spirit and stuff, and it takes a lot of – ooh! Raiko-nee-san, it's your turn!"

Raiko's eyes focused on the target ahead of her line, and she walked all the way up to it, likely anticipating the difficulty of unspoken kidou. Sure enough, after a few minutes, she returned, shaking her head and now as frustrated as my. She signed wildly to Ran, face glum.

"She says she can feel the energy all the way into her hands but it just stops there, like it's stuck."

"It's probably just that you can't say it," I said, clasping my hands and fidgeting. "I guess you need to 'internalize the incantation' or whatever it was sensei said earlier."

"How do we do that?" Ran asked, squinting.

I sighed. "No idea."

"Then allow me to show you." From the front of Raiko's line, Ume smirked and took her stance at full distance. She paused to focus, eyes closed, for only a second, then opened them with fierce intensity.

"Sai!"

I felt a slight breeze, and could see it ruffle the sparse grass which stuck up through the dirt on the way to the target. The dummy seized up almost immediately, firmly.

"Woah," Ran said.

Raiko and I both frowned.

Ume released the spell, only after holding it a few seconds for effect, then crossed her arms and smirked at me.

"Well done, Miss Itagaki!" the sensei called from across the lawn.

"Piece of cake," she said. "Top-notch shinigami like you should have no problem with easy spells like these." Ume's eyes bored into mine, smiling.

I said nothing. From two rows away, however, a smallish, dark boy snorted, and without a second's hesitation held out a hand and, with intense calm in his voice, said:

"Byakurai."

The air around the boy pulsed visibly, and a white hot bold of light exploded into being, ripping inches away from Ume's wide eyes, then curving and crashing into the nearest target, which fell to the ground and promptly incinerated.

Ume did nothing but blink. As did every other member of the class, every last one of whom stared at the boy.

"It is best not to boast," the boy said quietly, so that only Ume and us nearest to him could hear. "One generally finds that there are many people stronger than us, if only we are rash enough to draw them out."

"You...you missed," Ume tried.

The boy grinned, eyes narrowed in a way that seemed almost inhuman for a half-second. "Would you rather I not missed?"

Ume turned white as a sheet, highlighted even more by her dark plum hair.

"M..m…Mr. Tamotsu, could I speak with you please!" It was more a terse, if shaken, order than a question. Our sensei's voice seemed smaller and much higher than normal.

Tamotsu straightened, finally tore a lingering, unaffected glance away from Ume, and walked slowly across the lawn to speak with sensei in the far corner.

Everyone stared after them for awhile, but the teacher's earnest comments could not be heard, and one by one my classmates returned to their practice.

Eventually, with so little as a single world, Tamotsu gave a low bow and returned to his line. When his turn came around again, he sent at the target a single blinding spell, unremarkable aside from its precise power and accuracy.

I only wished my own shots could be so precise.

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

On our way out from Kidou, Sanuki bound me once more for good measure, under the guise of reminding the class to study the perfect technique. What's worse, Ran had managed to get the basic grasp of the thing, so long as she was close range, and for the duration of lunch felt the inexplicable need to practice on me at random and frequent intervals.

"Ow – Hey! What the," I said with a glare, as Ran's latest attempt sent her into peals of laughter, and me face-first into my bowl of miso soup. "What was that for?"

Ran, still in fits of giggles, couldn't answer. Luckily, she'd lost her concentration, so at least I had the use of my arms to wipe off my face with my sleeve.

"Ran, honestly, I don't think that's necessary," Kaede said with a sign.

"But he's funny," Ran managed through her remaining laughter.

"The soup-face look does suit you," Hiroki said, and I punched him in the arm. He punched me back – harder, though I hate to admit it – then looked around. "Has anyone seen Raiko-san lately? She's normally here for lunch."

"Taiki?" Hideki asked, pointedly, for some reason.

"What?"

"Where's she been?"

"How should I know?" I shrugged and popped a mini egg roll into my mouth.

"Well, I dunno," Hideki said. "You're kinda the one who brought her into the group in the first place. You mean you two aren't…?"

I stared at him for a minute before I got what he was implying. "Wait, what? Me and Raiko? No way, man."

Hideki shrugged. "I'm just saying."

"She _is_ pretty hot," Hiroki added. "I wouldn't blame you."

I shook my head emphatically. "No. Raiko's a cool girl, but I'm not into her like that."

"Doesn't matter," Ran said through a mouthful of rice. "I know where Raiko-nee-san is. She's with Akemi-san."

"Really?" Kaede asked. "Seems they've been getting along well. We may not be seeing much more of Raiko-san, if that's how things are."

"What's that supposed to mean?" I said, noting her pointed look in my direction.

"Well, you haven't exactly been friendly to the Sayuri daughter," she said. "And if Raiko has to choose between her company and yours…"

"I'm hurt."

"But you know it's true." Kaede shrugged and sipped her soup.

"Whatever. I don't care about either of them."

"Uh-huh," Hideki said, eyes rolled.

"Like I said, whatever. And anyway, we better get going," I said, slurping up what little remained of my soup and standing. "Time for swords."

"Thank goodness," Hiroki said with a lazy stretch as he also stood. "The part of the day that makes it all worthwhile."

"I hear ya."

We put away our trays and I led the way through the halls to the practice area. As I rounded a corner, I ran smack into a large, muscular upperclassman with a big tuft of orange-red hair and an indignant frown.

I mean, he ran into me.

"Hey," I said. "Watch where you're going!"

"_You_ watch your _mouth_ when talking to nobility, freshman," the boy sneered back, only pissing me off more… but I wasn't stupid enough to pick a fight with someone carrying a real sword. He had to be at least a third year, for that privilege, and it's my general rule not to pick a fight I'm not certain I can win.

Not that he didn't deserve it.

When I said nothing, the boy pressed on with a snort, followed by a small entourage, nearly all of whom also glared at me as they passed.

"What's up with him?" I asked, mostly to myself, as we hurried into the practice area. We were still a few minutes early, and most of the class was already there, but Tebi-sensei wasn't yet.

"I recognize him," Kaede said, looking over her shoulder in the direction the upperclassmen had gone. "He's of the Daiho clan. Nobility, but minor…they didn't live all that far from us in Rukongai."

"Oh yeah," Ran said. "I remember that….oh, look, Raiko-nee-san!" Ran went hurtling off toward the other end of the large practice area, where stood Raiko…of course, my luck, Akemi was with her. I trailed behind at as far a distance as I could manage, and the others followed. By the time I got over, Raiko and Ran were "talking" animatedly. Akemi, who saw me coming, looked for a moment as if she was deciding something, but in the end stood her ground.

So I, of course, just pretended she wasn't there.

In fact, I didn't really say much of anything while the others all caught up with Raiko, until I sensed the large presence behind me.

"Akemi! I've been looking all over for you! I saw you weren't at lunch today and I was worried."

Akemi's immediate attention went to the stranger behind me; when I looked, I saw it was the upperclassman from the hallway. I made to say something rude (now being in the protection of a formal class), but the boy didn't even seem to see me – or any of us, aside from Akemi.

"I was at lunch, Koji. I just chose to eat with another friend today."

"Oh, is that all?" There was something I didn't like about this Koji's tone, but I couldn't quite place it. "Well, in that case you should simply have invited your friend to join us. After all, you know what your presence means to the group."

"Of course, Koji. I'll be there at dinner."

He smiled. "Of course you will! Oh, and since there's time between this class and dinner, I thought I'd offer to give you some combat tips. If you want the extra practice."

I could see Akemi's eyes light up at the prospect, though she kept her cool outwardly. "Sure, I'd like that…say, what are you doing here, anyway?"

But before he could answer, or before any of my other friends could interrupt, Tebi-sensei arrived and shuffled us neatly, and quickly, into groups.

"My helpers for the day are some of the brightest from my 3rd year class. I know you're used to the 4th and 5th years who were helping from before, but I promise you these six here today are all quite talented. From the left, Araki Seiji, Morimoto Mei, Daiho Koji…"

_Wonderful. So he's here to order us around._

As it happened, the 3rd year in charge of my group was a pretty nice younger guy named Ri. He was really strict with us, but helpful. Somehow, though, I just couldn't focus on the parry drills we were doing. Hideki and Kaede were in my group, but Hiroki, Ran, and Raiko were split in groups all over the practice area, and Akemi was in the group under the "care" of Daiho Koji. I say "group," but he didn't seem to be paying much attention to any of the others, except when he had to. And whenever it was Akemi's turn to try something, he'd "help" her with her form…very hands-on.

A bokken hit me over the head.

"Hey, ouch!" I said.

"If you were paying attention to the drill instead of staring angrily at the upperclassman hitting on the pretty noble girl, it wouldn't have hit you," said Kaede with a slight smirk.

"That _is_ sort of why we're working on parries," Hideki said. "To, you know…use them."

"I wasn't staring," I said.

"Right," said Kaede. "Which is why I just hit you in the head."

"With the most obvious head cut I've seen to date," our helper, Ri, added. "Get to work, all of you!"

We ran the drill a few times more before I switched out with Hideki.

"I wasn't staring," I said again.

"She's pretty, Taiki, but she's a noble," Kaede said in between parries.

"Whoever said I –"

"That and my guess is you don't stand much of a chance with her as long as you're, you know, not talking to her," Hideki added.

"That's not it!" I yelled, causing a few groups to look over – they went back to work when I stared them down. "That's not it. It's that Koji guy. I don't like him. Something about him just…" I shuddered, but I still couldn't explain it.

"He can be a prick," Kaede said, letting another student take her place and run the drill with Hideki. "The whole lot of them can, the Daiho clan…but it's not like he's evil or anything. I mean look how helpful he's been, here." She shrugged and wiped the sweat off her brow. "Just leave him to his own, is what I'd say."

Over in Akemi's group, Koji finished explaining something to her, then left Akemi to drill with another girl and went off to check in with Tebi. Akemi swung the bokken in a graceful, quick arc and it landed swiftly on the other girl's head before she could do anything about it, then swayed back into ready position.

"Can't you do anything right?" the girl screeched.

"She did do it right," offered another boy in their group. "You just did it poorly. If you were better you'd have been able to block that…"

"No! It's her fault! She's always screwing up the drills and sneaking in all these fancy moves just to mock me! Well, if you want a real battle then you've got one! Come on! No more drills where you know what move I'll use because it's already pre-set. Let's fight for real!"

Several nearby groups, including mine, had stopped to see what the commotion was about. Kaede looked at me.

"Are you going to do something?

"What? Why me?"

She shrugged.

"We're here to drill, Ume," Akemi said, wooden sword now hanging at her side, calm. "I'm sure you'll be able to block with practice, but I'd be happy to slow it down for you until you get the hang of it."

"Don't you dare talk to me like that," Ume said, dropping her bokken entirely and pulling into kidou stance. "Don't you talk like you're better than me!"

I sighed, but it looked like things were going to get dangerous. Running across the lawn at the girls, I had almost stepped in between them when someone pushed me out the way, sending me sprawling.

"Now, now, girls. Save it for Friday's free practice," Koji said, while the boy earlier introduced as Araki Seiji wisely held Ume's shoulders until she stopped struggling. He then looked at me. "You again? You have really got to learn to control

yourself."

"I was just trying to…!"

"Whatever. Troublemaker…I give the same advice to you. If you want to fight Miss Sayuri, then you'd best save it for Friday practice. However, I doubt you'll stand a chance."

I glared, but just then Tebi-sensei arrived to break up the mess and set us all back to practicing. As I walked away, I looked over my shoulder to see Koji with his arm around Akemi, acting quite concerned for her well-being. Though she didn't look too pleased, she didn't move away either.

I had no intention of fighting with her before Koji said what he did, but the way he put it made it into a challenge. Just to prove him wrong, I resolved to take her on.

Maybe that way, when I won, she'd also realize that she was wrong for lying to me and finally apologize. Maybe, when I won.


	7. Chapter 6

Chapter 6

Chapter 6

Don't get me wrong now. I'd been looking forward to Friday's optional free-fighting period ever since I heard about it, more since Koji's jab at me on the second day of class. He didn't know who he was talking down to. I'd show him.

Well, okay. Third years were allowed to use real swords in practice, so they weren't going to fight us. And there was no way I was about to challenge _him_, and get my flimsy little borrowed bokken cut in half.

I could have beat him on even ground, of course. It's not my fault 3rd years are given more freedoms than us freshmen.

Anyway, my point is, he said I couldn't beat his little favorite, Akemi. And so I had to beat her in order to prove him wrong. And more importantly, prove myself right.

So I'd been looking forward to the free-fighting period. There was only one problem.

It was really early in the morning.

On a Friday.

And it was optional.

The result was, by the time I woke up, threw on my uniform and rushed into the main courtyard without even bothering to brush my hair, most of the others who had planned to show up were already paired up and well through several matches. I grabbed a bokken from the sword racks and searched through the crowds around me for the other first-years. I found them, on the opposite side of the courtyard. A few 4th years were watching over no more than ten individual matches, each of which had a small crowd gathered around it.

I sidled up to Hiroki and Kaede, who were watching Hideki take on an unfamiliar 1st year boy in a singularly dull match. Neither fighter even twitched, silently sizing each other up, and so I didn't bother to watch.

"What's the deal? Why isn't everyone fighting?"

"At once?" Kaede looked at me like I was nuts. "And good gods, Taiki, your hair is…"

"Hideous?" Hiroki supplied.

"I just woke up like three minutes ago, how was I supposed to have time to – you know what, never mind." I looked back at Kaede. "What do you mean? It's free fighting. I thought everyone would fight at once."

Kaede shook her head and looked exasperated, so I figured I must have said something stupid. "There may be a lot of space in the courtyard, Taiki, but there isn't _that_ much. With all these practice swords, and real swords, being swung around – one of the teachers even released a soul slayer earlier! Can you imagine if everyone here was doing it all at once?"

"Who released a slayer? Aw man, I missed it!"

Hideki's match was declared over. I didn't see what happened, and I couldn't have cared less. They probably stared each other into mutual submission. Hiroki motioned to Kaede, and they took up the empty space and pulled up their bokken into ready position.

I fidgeted uneasily and scanned the crowd around me. Especially with the crowds the way they were, it was hard to find any one person in particular.

Hideki stepped in next to me, watching his brother and Kaede fight even as he spoke to me. They were a slightly more lively pair, but I didn't bother to watch.

"What's up with you?" he asked, eyes still on the match. "You're late, you're antsy, and your hair looks like a pair of birds made a nest in it."

"It's not that bad. Have you seen Akemi?"

"The Sayuri clan girl?" Hideki turned to look at me. I expected him to ask how he was supposed to know, but instead he pointed over my shoulder. I turned to follow his finger, and a few small groups away saw one with a crowd that was particularly full. "She's over there. She and Raiko-san were practicing earlier, but some strange looking glasses girl barged in and it caused a huge fuss. They were fighting even before I went out, but it looked to me like Sayuri-sama was just going easy so she didn't hurt the girl…was kinda pathetic really. That's why I left to go a round."

Before he had even finished I was halfway the distance to Akemi's group, and I pushed my way through the surrounding crowd in just enough time to see a plum-haired, glasses-wearing, very angry looking girl laying on the ground, Akemi's bokken pointed directly at her throat. The girl on the ground was struggling to find a way to get up without getting "impaled."

"I'm not done yet! Stop using such cheap tricks and fight me for real!"

Akemi sighed. "Look, I don't know exactly what your problem with me is, but I really have no desire to injure you, so I'd rather you just stopped before something happens on accident…I don't know many more moves than you, after all…"

"What?" the girl on the floor screeched. "You dare imply you know _more_ than me?"

But she still couldn't move without Akemi's bokken pressing dangerously into her throat, and finally one of the 4th year moderators stepped in.

"What's going on over here? Honestly, you two still?" he said when he saw them. "Give it a rest and let someone else have a chance, would you?"

"That's what I've been trying to," Akemi started, but before either the moderator or Ground Girl could cut her off, I did.

"I want a go, first," I said, stepping into the circle and brandishing my bokken.

The 4th year rolled his eyes but, as shouting ensued from a couple of groups over, seemed to decide that things were under control in our group and left us on our own.

Akemi took a step back from the girl she'd been fighting, letting her sword arm drop to her side, although her muscles told me she was still at the ready. Her erstwhile opponent took the opportunity to quickly stand, brush herself off, shoot an indignant look at us both, but then steal away as quickly and quietly as possible.

Akemi's eyes narrowed at me, as if she wondered if I really meant the challenge, but she fell into an attack position, both hands gripped around her bokken handle in front of her. "Sure. If you want. But we should give the others a turn soon."

"It won't take long."

Akemi said nothing, only watched me, so I charged.

Akemi raised her bokken to block the downward cut to her head that I was obviously planning, but I stepped to her left and swung around to her venerable back. Just before I hit, she spun to face me, rotated her sword tip downward to block mine and knocked it out of the way.

Before I could recover, she swung down at my head. I didn't have time to block; I could only dodge as quickly as possible to my left. The blow glanced off my right shoulder – it would leave a mark, but I managed to escape the worst of it.

We both took a step back, out of range, to catch our breath and reassess.

"You're pretty good," Akemi said, narrowed eyes and slight grin aimed at me in an almost hungry expression – she was _enjoying_ this!

"You're not half bad yourself," I said, not returning her smile. "But you can't beat me."

An even larger crowd had gathered around us. Kaede and Hiroki had even stopped their match to come watch; I could see them out of the corner of my eye.

Akemi didn't respond, waiting and watching me as if she didn't even hear me, or any of the others, only saw. Only saw my sword and my motions.

Impatient, I moved in, assaulting Akemi with every strike we had learned so far in varying order. Akemi parried every one, not even moving her stance. A good 10 hits later, I still hadn't landed a single blow, but she hadn't retaliated after any of the blocks either.

Finally, as she dropped back a half-step and drew back her sword to attack with a cut to my left side, I saw my opening. The head. Her sword was nowhere near it.

I swung downward.

Before I could even gauge what happened, her bokken had swept upward and across in an arc, knocking my own off to my right, stronger than I would have thought possible. I didn't have a chance to recover it; her sword swept back towards my right kidney, completing the arc. At the same time, her opposite leg swept under my feet from the left. The opposing forces knocked me clean on my back, and before I could scramble to my feet, Akemi shifted the bokken around in her hands and plunged it tip-first right at my face.

I flinched, but the tip only rapped me lightly on the nose.

The crowd cheered, and I opened my eyes to see the tip of the bokken still staring me in the face. Once Akemi seemed sure I wasn't going to try some idiotic retaliation – and, let's face it, even I'm not stupid enough to attack with a sword point in my face – she pulled back the bokken and offered me a hand instead.

"Nice match."

I didn't take it, climbing to my feet on my own instead. "What _was_ that? It was totally unfair, we never learned that in class!"

"Koji-sempai taught me," she said, threading her bokken through her uniform belt to let it hang and standing tall. "Of course it would be useless with a real sword, since the first swipe would cut you in half, but Sempai said it might be useful in here."

Koji. That red-haired boy. He'd pay.

…someday.

I just stared at Akemi, seething, hoping I'd made very clear that she was a cheater, and that's the only way she could possibly beat me.

But several kids from both freshman classes had swarmed around her, asking questions, demanding she teach them the move. Even a few of the 4th years looking on nodded in approval.

Disgusted, I turned to walk off, no longer in the mood for free fighting.

I definitely wasn't impressed by her skill. I could beat that any day. I'd just gone easy on her. That's right.

Before I got far, Akemi's hand caught my shoulder and turned me around to face her.

"It was a good fight. We should…you know…do it again sometime. It would be good training."

"Don't you get it?" I said, brushing her hand away from me. "This isn't about training! It's about who's stronger, and who's _right_."

Akemi let her hands hang at her sides, shrugging slightly, but not looking nearly as apologetic as the last time we'd spoken. She shook her head a little, shrugged again. "Look, I already told you I was wrong. I even apologized. You have nothing to prove to me, in battle or out. But I don't have anything to prove to you either. You're a strong opponent…but I feel you'd be a stronger ally. So I wish we could move past this."

I stared at her for a few moments, eyes narrowed, before I was even sure how to respond. "You sound different."

"Well, Koji-sempai says that without confidence, there's no…"

"Him again?" I said, throwing my arms wide. "Are you blind? That kid is using you! He's probably just trying to get into your pants or something! Why do you let him control you?"

Akemi blushed, but it looked more like an angry blush than an embarrassed one. "How dare you imply that about my sempai! Koji and his friends have treated me really well, which is more than I can say about you! And anyway," she quieted a little, then paused, before continuing. "Even if he is using me, he's holding up his end of the bargain. He's training me well. And as you can see, it's working." She sighed, glared at me a moment, and walked off, pausing only to set her bokken carefully away in storage before leaving the courtyard.

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

I couldn't believe how Taiki acted at practice that morning. If only he'd just shaken my hand after practice and left it at that, everything would have been all right. I would have left him alone, he wouldn't have yelled… He was strong, after all, and if nothing else I could have used him as a sparring partner, even if we weren't on talking terms. But despite my reservations about Koji and his crew, it was as I said – they'd taken care of me from the beginning, and he'd been training me well. I wasn't going to stand there while he was insulted.

I wasn't going to pick a fight over it either, though. No point in unnecessary violence…especially when I'd already proven my "point," so to speak, in battle.

I was longing for some piece and quiet in my room, after that fiasco, but I wasn't so lucky. Raiko had followed me out of the courtyard, when she saw me storm off, and caught up with me in the hallway moments later.

_What was that about,_ she scribbled on a paper, and handed to me as we walked. I slowed to allow her easier "talking."

"Nothing," I said. To her raised eyebrow, I added, "Nothing more than usual."

_If you insist. It's almost noon – how about lunch?_

"I'd love to." I smiled. A big bowl of fruit sounded delicious. Then I frowned.

_What?_

"Oh, I just remembered…I told some people I'd eat with them today, already."

_That Koji kid and them? What's the girl's name, Jakushi something?_

"Chie-san," I said. "Yeah, Koji-sempai and the others." We were already standing outside the cafeteria, and now walked through the doors. "But you know, you can join us if you'd like. Really," I added, to the note of skepticism on her face. "I mentioned the other day that I was eating with you and they said I should just bring you along."

Raiko shrugged. I took it as agreement.

"Let's go grab our seats before we get food…Koji's table tends to get crowded."

Raiko nodded, and followed me across the cafeteria to Koji's table. It was, as I'd said, rather crowded; aside from the usuals (Koji, Chie, Mamoru, Seiji, and Iza-kun) I didn't recognize any of the others from previous meals. Chie, as usual, spotted me coming and waved cheerily; Koji stood to greet me as soon as he noticed.

"Ah, Miss Akemi! What a delight! I've been waiting to hear all about your matches this morning – there have already been rumors of course – and who is this?" he said finally, noticing Raiko beside me.

"This is Kinoyama Raiko, sempai," I said, definitely not in the mood to talk about the morning's matches and thus eager for the change in subject.

Koji reached out a friendly hand for shaking, but paused halfway and frowned. "Kinoyama? I haven't heard of that clan."

Raiko signed something at him, small frown on her face. I didn't need to understand sign language to be able to translate.

"She's not from a clan, sempai. She's from a Rukongai family, of mixed Living World parentage, so…"

Koji dropped his hand entirely now, eyeing Raiko suspiciously, especially when she signed again. I didn't know what she meant this time, so I shrugged. She scribbled on the pad and handed it to me:

_I'm not sure I like him, Akemi…sorry, I know he's our sempai and all…_

Trying to avoid conflict, I closed the notebook and handed it back to her hurriedly.

"What do you mean? This girl isn't a noble? And you brought her here?"

"Well, you said I should bring my friend."

Raiko signed, what I took to mean, "Who cares if I'm a noble or not, prick?" I chose not to translate.

"I didn't mean non-noble trash like that. I thought you knew better, Akemi."

I was busy trying to evaluate the drop of the polite "Miss" Koji always included before my name to even comprehend what he was saying at first, let alone have a chance to be angry at it.

Luckily, Raiko took care of that part for me.

With the angriest face I'd ever seen her make, she let loose a series of signs so fast they blurred together. I doubt even Ran would have been able to read them. But from the look of things, it was probably a good thing Ran wasn't there to see what Raiko was "saying."

"What?" was all Koji said at first, looking first back at me, and when I didn't translate, at Raiko again. "What the hell are you doing? I can't understand those stupid little hand motions. Talk like a normal person!"

"She can't," I started to say, but before I could finish, Raiko had scribbled something very darkly onto her book and shoved it in Koji's face.

"Understand…this?" he said, looking quizzically at her.

She gave him the finger and stormed off, leaving me staring, speechless, after her.

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Lunch of course was awkward, but Raiko had gone back to the room, and silver-haired Chie convinced me to stay. I suspect she felt the usual distinct lack of females at the table…regardless, we managed to calm Koji by distracting him with tales of my success that morning. I had to promise not to bring Raiko (or any "half-breeds") to the table with me again, and it burned my insides to do so…but I never promised not to eat with said half-breeds in my own time.

It felt uncomfortable, for sure. I didn't agree with Koji; Raiko had become even more precious to me than he had, so far that week, and I imagined, if she forgave me, that we'd become close friends. But Koji was my sempai, and his advice had been valuable to me so far. It was the only edge I had over the others, when I was usually either ignored or outright hated. I needed what he had to offer, so I held my tongue. At least around him.

Koji didn't hesitate to remind me, as we left the table, that Friday afternoon – that afternoon – was our last chance to sign up for our initial ride-along with the Gotei 13 divisions. He also didn't hesitate to remind me which division I ought to be signing up for.

When I stood before the sign-up sheets posted on the dormitory walls, though, during a brief stop before returning to the room to apologize profusely to Raiko, I paused. I hesitated. I looked carefully at every single sign-up sheet. My eyes lingered on a familiar name on the 13th sheet – Shihouin.

But in the end, I signed my name at the bottom of the sheet labeled "Sixth Division – Captain Watabe and Vice-Captain Mori."

Koji may have been an elitist prick sometimes, but when it came to my training, he had never yet led me wrong.

I then hurried back to my room, hoping my roommate would forgive me the actions of the person I called "sempai."


	8. Chapter 7

Chapter 7

Chapter 7

I was lucky. Either Raiko was in a particularly forgiving mood, or she honestly felt I hadn't done anything wrong.

All Friday afternoon she spent locked in her bedroom, and at first I thought it was just because she was angry at me. But when she didn't come out for dinner, I had a distinct feeling that there was more to it than that. I positioned myself outside her door, and although she didn't respond – of course – I apologized as best I could, for myself and for Koji.

Finally, after listening for several minutes, she opened the door and we sat together in the living room. She didn't blame me for Koji's behavior – it was a misunderstanding, she said – but advised me to stay away from "that sort." I said nothing; it's true, it was still bothering me, how he acted…but I needed what he and his crew could give. I didn't acknowledge any right on his part, but I couldn't come out and say he was wrong either.

Luckily, I didn't have to. It turns out Raiko had other things on her mind, before the run-in with Koji even happened. As we talked, it finally came out that her mother in the Living World had died, and Raiko wasn't entirely sure how to feel about it. I didn't ask how she knew, and it was difficult to be comforting since no one I knew had ever died, but I did my best to get her to relax. We parted that night with small smiles, neither quite comfortable with the world in general, but at least on good terms with each other once again.

I was planning to eat with Raiko that next morning, to check up on her and see how she was handling the news about her mother, but unfortunately I slept in. When I finally woke and realized what time it was, I had very little time before I was to report to 6th Division headquarters.

I took just enough time getting ready that I thought I would look at least decently presentable, then took off at a run through the Seireitei walls toward the 6th Division headquarters. Again, I was lucky – anyone raised outside of the walls would have had a nearly impossible time navigating them alone, but I knew my way around them well, and managed to sprint into the 6th Division's courtyard just in time to see the others who signed up there being split into groups.

One of the few fully-fledged shinigami there – I assumed they were all seated officers, who were to take charge of us for the day – looked over at my hurried entrance. She held a clipboard, and walked over to greet me.

She scanned the clipboard and examined me. It was only then, right before she spoke, that I remembered where I had seen her before.

"V…vice-captain!"

The 6th Division Vice Captain, Mori Ayuko, nodded. "And you must be Sayuri."

"I'm incredibly sorry for arriving late!" I bowed as low as I could. When I stood, she was still examining me with a critical eye.

"We can't tolerate lateness in this Division, Sayuri," she said. "It causes trouble for the entire Division if one person isn't prepared, after all." I hadn't had someone address me by only my last name, without even a polite "-san" attached, for as long as I could remember. And though her calculating glance and disapproving tone cut at me as if I was already a member of her squad and had let her down…somehow it was kind of nice to be treated as any other trainee.

That intense, serious gaze cracked just a tiny bit into the hint of a smile, though, as she watched me bow again in apology. "Lucky for you," she said, "you aren't late."

I stood, wide-eyed. "I'm not?"

"No." She looked back down at the clipboard. "As it happens, Sayuri, you would have been late if you were part of this Division for the day. But…" She paused and sent unreadable glance over her shoulder, where, for the first time, I spotted the white-robed Captain surveying the group. I wondered where this was going.

"As it happens," Mori started again, "There have been some technical problems in this Division today, so you have been transferred to the 13th Division."

"What?"

"What I said. The 13th Division meets at noon today, so you have another hour or two before you have to meet over there. Although I recommend you show up early," she added with a sly, vaguely amused smile.

"Uh…yes, ma'am," I said, still not sure exactly what was going on. Debating, I finally chanced a questions. "Is…um…is it because I was late?..."

She shook her head. "No, of course not. It's simply a technical problem, as I said earlier. Too many people signed up for our Division, and we want to be sure each student receives adequate attention. Although I am sorry you won't be able to work with us today, that will have to wait for another time." She smiled at me, and felt that she was genuinely sorry.

I bowed again. "Thank you very much, Vice Captain!" I backed up toward the gate and bowed once more, for good measure.

"Say, Sayuri?"

"Yes ma'am?" I stopped and looked at her.

She smiled again, almost mischievously this time. "Next time I see you, you'd best be on time."

"Y…yes ma'am," I said, cheeks reddened, and bowed once more before backing out the courtyard gate and changing my course for the cafeteria – it would be best to eat before I met with the 13th Division, since I'd missed breakfast.

I wondered, as I walked, what exactly the so-called technical troubles were which had caused me to suddenly shift Divisions. The Vice Captain said it was due to numbers, but if what Koji said was right, my nobility should have gained me preference – and more importantly, the number of students hadn't seemed particularly large. I couldn't help but feel there was something more…_personal_ about it, somehow. As if I in particular had been slighted.

But there wasn't much time to dwell on it. To be honest, I hadn't been looking forward to spending time with the nobles' division much in the first place, and at the processional the 13th Division had seemed considerably more laid-back and welcoming. It was only that mischievous and somehow inviting grin on the face of the young Vice Captain as I left which made me regret, just a small bit, that I wouldn't be spending the day following the 6th Division around.

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

By the time we had to sign up for our ride-along divisions, I hadn't really picked a favorite. Mostly that's because I hadn't done the homework for Politics class, so I didn't really know much about them, besides what little I'd seen at the processional the other day. The result was, I was one of the last to sign up. The 11th, Fighting, Division was already full. Actually, most of them were. The only ones that remained were 4th, 6th, 8th, and 12th. I wasn't interested in the Healers, it wasn't really my style. From what I heard about the 6th Division, I wasn't even eligible. 8th Division sounded all right, although it was a little odd that only three other people were signed up for it….

Only thing was, 8th Division was meeting at 8 in the morning.

12th, on the other hand, was meeting at 3 in the afternoon. I decided I was down with that, and signed my name to the piece of paper.

And at 3 o'clock Saturday afternoon, long after any of the other Divisions met, I found myself standing at the gate of the Gotei 13 12th Division – Research and Development.

The Science Complex loomed huge behind the smaller barracks and training courtyard. It was kinda creepy. The courtyard itself was in a bit of disarray, and several uniformed shinigami, clearly lower members of the division, were putting away practice swords and repairing dummies. Then I noticed one white-robed member among them. She was helping carry some practice swords. Silver hair swept impossibly off to the right side of her face, and when she turned to see me standing there bright orange goggle-like glasses glinted in the sun. She set the swords where they belonged and waved me in.

"Good morning!" she said cheerily.

"Er…good…morning?" I responded, not sure why it qualified as morning, but liking her anyway. "I'm Masuyo Taiki…"

"Excellent, excellent! I think we're only waiting for a few others to show – ah, right over there." She gestured to the back corner of the courtyard, on the deck of the barracks, where a small group in Academy uniforms had gathered in the shade drinking lemonade. Most of them sat; standing, leaning against the wall, was a boy in full uniform with longish blue hair and a completely expressionless face, arms crossed.

"There…ma'am?"

"Yes, over there!" she said, and when I still looked confused, responded, "Oh, right. I mean, the Academy kids here for the ride along have gathered over there with my Vice Captain, Takumi. I'm Chiba Izumi, by the way," she added as an afterthought.

This goofy-looking lady who was helping the division's first years clean was the Captain?...

"You can call me Izumi. Or Captain. Or just 'hey, you,' I suppose."

"Right. It's a pleasure…Captain Hey You."

She laughed, perhaps a bit too hard, and scooted me off toward the porch to wait. I poured a glass of lemonade from a pitcher and joined the others, about half of whom I recognized from class, although I couldn't remember their names, if I'd ever learned them. We chatted for awhile, the Vice Captain watching us in total silence, until the first year division members had finished cleaning up and the Captain wandered over to us.

"All right!" she said, grinning madly. "Welcome all of you to the 12th Division! As I'm sure you all know, we are not only Hollow destroyers extraordinaire here in the 12th Division, we are also head of Research and Development. SO, I thought for our ride-along today we'd show you around the lab!"

There were a few groans.

"I thought this was a ride-along," someone complained. "Like, you know, so we'd get to see what it's like to be a shinigami and stuff."

"Well sure," the Captain said, shrugging, "we could have let you all join us for practice this morning. But the way I figure, you all have practice every day anyway."

"You mean we aren't going to fight any Hollows?" another girl asked.

"Of course not! That wouldn't be safe. And anyway, here in the 12th Division we spend a good deal of the time in the lab. So I thought it would be best. Anyway, follow me and Takumi here!"

Izumi-taichou turned and walked off toward the imposing building in behind the barracks, and the silent blue-haired boy followed. So did the rest of us.

I was kind of in with the earlier complainers, really. I was hoping we'd get taken on real missions just like we'd heard about in Politics class. Get a feel for the real deal, you know. So I wasn't thinking this tour would be so great.

But once we entered the Science Complex, I knew I was wrong.

We knew, then, where all the division's members had disappeared to after practice. They were everywhere, handling bright colored monitors and machinery in one corner, running experiments with ceiling-high test tubes in another. Some of them were in full gear in special sealed-off glass rooms, swords drawn, battling with flashes of light and bursts of sound. I guess they were trying out new kinds of combat technology.

It was overwhelming in that room…but you know, their job looked kinda fun.

Izumi-taichou showed us proudly around several of the more complex experiments. There was one entire section researching pre-packaged kidou bombs, for shinigami who never got the hang of it, or who were running out of energy at the end of a battle. After that, the Captain took us over to a separate room, inside which was a huge cubic forcefield – containing a live and very angry Hollow.

"No way," one of the students said.

"This is one of our newer ones," Chiba said with a proud puffing of her chest. "The Hollow Containment and Analysis Unit, or H-CAU."

"So that's a real Hollow in there?" I asked. "Aren't you…worried?"

"What, that it'll get out?" Chiba laughed. "Unlikely."

"What about the ethical implications?" The voice was that of a teen boy, quiet and intense. When I looked back at him, I saw that it was one of my classmates – the one who'd caused a huge stir the other day in Kidou by shooting off a lighting bolt.

Chiba frowned. "What do you mean?"

"The reason shinigami kill Hollows with their soul slayers is to purify the Hollow so that the soul residing within may be saved, yes?"

"Of course, boy." Chiba smiled.

"If that Hollow is trapped in there, isn't the soul still suffering within?"

There was a ripple of murmurs through the ride-along crowd, and even a few of the shinigami working on the machines hooked up to the Hollow looked over at us warily.

But Chiba had an answer. "Don't you worry, dear. The moment the data has been analyzed the Hollow is immediately purified, and since the soul is already here in Soul Society, the journey is even easier!"

My classmate didn't buy it. "But the time they're being analyzed. Isn't that prolonging the suffering?"

For the first time ever, I heard a low raspy voice come from the blue-haired Vice-Captain, who had been standing at the back of the group. "The data gathering process is quick. It is over within moments. And considering the Hollow must only be moderately weakened to be captured by the containment unit and transferred to the unit here, the time saved by not having to complete the fight actually makes the process much faster. On the whole. And the process is crucial to the development of realistic practice Hollows, and Hollow combat in general." True to his word, in a moment the Hollow in the force field de-materialized and a small soul appeared. A shinigami stood up from the controls and went to speak to it.

Vice Takumi was quiet again, but creepy intense, and he was looking at the darkish boy with a strange squint. He walked over to Chiba and muttered something in her ear. She examined my classmate too, and nodded; that was all.

She showed us around several more places in the lab. An hour later, we reached a locked off room toward the back of the complex. "I've been saving this one for last because we're particularly proud of this project. We call it," she said as she unlocked the door and led us in, "Mod Soul Re-Generation."

"Regeneration?" someone asked.

"What's a mod-soul?" I added.

"Modified soul," Vice Takumi said, still in that creepy low voice. "A soul which has been created instead of born, and is infused into an artificial body."

"I thought that was illegal!" one of the girls said.

"Oh, well it was," Chiba said lightly with a smile as we all stood outside the cracked-open door, waiting to be let in. "But a few years ago we received clearance from the Commander General to restart the program. Under new direction of course!" She grinned. "Of course you know from your history class why the last program was closed…"

Blank stares met this.

"Ah, I see you haven't learned that yet. Well, no matter!" She smiled again. "Long and short of it was, the old mod souls were expected to be a free-standing, mindless army. But that was ignoring entirely their potential as individuals, and their rights as well. This time, we're focusing on integration."

"Integration?" someone else asked.

"There are already mod-souls enrolled at the Academy," Takumi said.

"That's right! Bet you didn't know that." Chiba nodded. "Which is exactly the point. We here in the 12th Division truly believe that mod souls can live normal, fulfilling lives, and still contribute highly to the success of the Gotei 13."

She opened the door finally and was about to let us in to see the project she was so proud of, when two lower ranked shinigami came tearing down the hall.

"Captain! One of the mod-souls is missing!"

Everyone turned to look. Before Captain Izumi could say a word, an alarm sounded throughout the building.

"A break-in," Takumi growled. "Which department?"

One of the shinigami pulled out a small electronic device, poked at the screen, and paled. "S-s-soul…s-…." He looked at all of us standing there suddenly, then whispered something in the Captain's ear, and for a second her eyes widened. Then, she nodded, straightened, and took on a serious expression for the first time that day.

"I'm sorry, kids, but we're going to have to cut this short. If there's been a break-in in both departments, it really must be dealt with immediately. But there will be snacks waiting in the courtyard for you if you'd like! Feel free to visit me any time with questions as well. Thanks for coming!" With that, she and the Vice Captain took off at a sprint, leaving the two overwhelmed-looking shinigami to escort us out of the building, apologizing the whole way.

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

I spent the afternoon, per Vice Captain Mori's orders, with the 13th Division of the Gotei 13. My family had some ties there, I knew; one of my ancestors, one I idolized, had been a member. On top of that, my parents were intimately acquainted with the family of the current Vice Captain – Shihouin Tsubasa.

Traditionally, I'd heard, the heirs to the Shihouin clan held the position of 2nd Division Captain. However, the Shihouin clan hadn't put out a Captain-class shinigami in years; when their servant clan – the Fon family – actually _did, _the Captaincy of 2nd Division had been quickly decided. Tsubasa-sama was not the heir to the clan, but he was young and talented, so I heard – he had become the hope of the clan to someday obtain a Captaincy…even if it wasn't of the 2nd Division.

That's why, when he became the Vice Captain of the 13th Division so recently, it had been such a big deal that even my parents were impressed.

At the time, I hadn't really cared much. And I hadn't thought of it afterwards either, not even really when the Captain and Vice Captain of Division 13 had passed in the processional.

It was an entirely different story, though, when I walked through the gates into their courtyard.

"Wo-oah, no way." That was the first thing I heard; it was a male voice, a few years older than mine, and you could hear the grin before you saw it. But when I did see it, it was pleasant, welcoming, and…familiar.

The robes the young man wore had been chopped off at the shoulders, though he wore a tight white T-shirt underneath. On his bare right arm was the number plate bearing his division – the number 13, and its representative flower.

The Vice Captain.

He cocked his head at my entrance, and observed me beneath spiky black hair with dark, golden, inquisitive eyes. "If it isn't little Akemi!"

The small group of Academy students around him either laughed, or gaped at me. I assumed the ones gaping were the ones who knew who I was.

I reddened and halted in my tracks. "Er…do I know you?"

"Of course you do! I _am_ wearing the Vice Captain's arm band, aren't I? Or did you not even bother to learn the name of the officers of the division when you signed up?" He was seated on the railing of the barracks porch, and regarded me with amusement.

"Oh…yes sir, of course. I know who you are. It's just…how do you know who I am?"

He laughed. "Relax, Sayuri. It's been years, I know. But you and I met when you were just crawling, and I was just barely old enough to remember."

I reddened more. He knew me as a baby?

"I said relax, didn't I? I wouldn't have even recognized you if not for the nobility marker."

My lily. Right.

I bowed and moved forward, introducing myself formally. "Sayuri Akemi, first year first class Academy, presenting for duty, Vice-Captain sir."

He patted the railing beside him, and made room for me. "Welcome, Sayuri. Sorry if I freaked you out." He patted me on the back as I sat beside him, and I scooted an inch or two further away. Childhood acquaintances or not, I wasn't big on invasion of personal space.

Although I had come early, I was still nearly the last to arrive. Not long after the last one made it and joined us on and around the porch, a white-robed woman with spiky silver hair came striding out of one of the barracks rooms followed by about 15 or 18 other shinigami, and swept over to introduce herself.

"Nice to meet you all! I'm Mochizuki Airi. Now, let's get down to business, shall we?"

I would have believed her business-like attitude if she hadn't winked at her Vice-Captain, and if he hadn't returned the wink so obviously.

She sighed finally, then grinned. "All right, so it's not really going to be a lot of business, I guess. Since you all were nice enough to join us, we thought we'd have a bit of fun today. Each of you will be paired with one of our seated officers, and you'll follow them around for the day."

"We figured we'd take you through an average day in our Division," Tsubasa jumped in from beside me. "An average non-combat day, of course…since we don't have any missions today, and even if we did it'd be a _bit_ too dangerous for you little newcomers." He ruffled my hair with his left hand, and I pulled away…but hid a tiny smile.

Mochizuki-taichou looked at me for the first time, and grinned. "Ah, Miss Sayuri if I'm not mistaken. I see the message reached you that you'd be joining us? I hope you don't mind."

"Not at all, ma'am."

"Of course the message got to her," Tsubasa said, leaning back against the post of the railing, hands behind his head. "I left it with Ayuko, not that stuffy Captain."

Airi rolled her eyes, but nodded in acknowledgement. "It pays to have classmates on the force, I guess. Anyway, let's pair you all up."

I was placed with an older blond-haired man, the current 9th seat and incredibly strong. The usual day in the Division started out with a group meeting and breakfast – we'd missed that part, because they'd used it to plan for our arrival. Then they did group warm-ups and drills. This was where we joined in. Their drills were tough, way harder than anything we'd done in school, though that was to be expected…and our partners were really helpful. After that, a late group lunch, a short period of relaxation to digest the food, and free fighting.

The free-fighting of course was toned down for us, although we got to watch a couple of fantastic fights between the seated officers, and a even couple of the non-seated members who joined were very impressive. At one point, as I watched, Vice Captain Tsubasa tapped me on the shoulder with his sheathed sword and challenged me to a match. Hoping I would just be humoring him, and not be…well, being destroyed by him, I politely agreed.

We battled lightly for a few minutes, my bokken versus his sheathed sword. He kept entirely at my pace, pushing me a bit without ever stepping beyond my reach. I knew he was taking it easy on me in the extreme, but I was learning from the encounter…it was a nice balance.

Before long, the 3rd seat, a red-headed girl named Maria, offered to take my place, and the swords were drawn for real. It was only when the two fought each other that I saw exactly who I had been fighting. Their swords moved faster than I could see. The girl, Maria, released her sword and the blade grew to twice its length. Still Tsubasa fought it off and even took clear control of the battle.

"Captain?" I asked, sidling up to her. She had been watching the battle too.

"Yes, Sayuri?"

"Why doesn't the Vice Captain release his sword?"

To my surprise, she laughed. "Tsubasa-kun? Release his soul slayer? Never."

"You mean he can't?"

"Of, of course he can!" She waved the comment off with her right hand and laughed again. "He'd never be a Vice Captain if he didn't. But Tsubasa-kun never uses his shikai. He simply doesn't need to."

I turned back to the battle and began to see her point. Before long there was no debating that Tsubasa was the winner, despite his opponent's shikai usage. She backed up, saluted, bowed, and conceded graciously, thanking him for the match.

"There's no better master of basic sword usage anywhere else in Soul Society," the Captain said with a grin that almost looked…hungry. Hungry for a challenge, and delighted to see it standing in front of her. "Remember that, Sayuri."

"Yes ma'am."

After that, we all sat around in the courtyard, and the seated officers all told stories of their most exciting, terrifying, or fulfilling days in the field. There were lots of laughs, and a couple of really inspiring stories. It made me want to get out there and fight for the greater good, like I'd always dreamed of doing. I couldn't wait.

And when they sent us away at the end of the day with waves and a chorus of "Come back and visit!", it made me want to do just that.


	9. Chapter 8

Chapter 8

AN: Thanks to all for reading and for the comments.

Thanks to comments from several conscientious and confused readers, I realized that the one most vital part of formatting – the paragraph breaks between time skips and character shifts – had been deleted somehow by the site. Thus, people pretty much had no idea what was going on.

That problem has now been repaired with a slightly different formatting: I've got lines of x's wherever there used to be a paragraph/page break. It looks way more cheesy than the original, but it's the only thing I've found that actually shows up. Sorry for the confusion and I hope this makes it easier for you guys!!

If you enjoyed following Akemi and Taiki, the next story in the series (Soul's Potential) is now in production, and available on my page. Thanks!

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Chapter 8

The next morning we all slept in. Thank goodness for that chance, finally.

Well, yeah, so I'd gotten to sleep in the morning before as well. But some of the others didn't. And it doesn't mean I couldn't be thankful.

Anyway, we all slept in and met for a late brunch in the cafeteria. It was a beautiful day, so we chose to take our food and eat at one of the outside tables. Everyone was there except Kaede and Ran, at first. Even Raiko had joined us, although she was silent as always without Ran to interpret.

"Where's the little one?" I asked finally, through bites of waffles, strawberries and whip cream.

What? It's a manly meal. I'd even say man-tastic.

…and so good…

"Won't leave her bedroom," Hiroki answered through equally stuffed cheeks. "Terrified out of her mind."

"What of?"

"When she signed up all the other teams were full…" Hideki began.

Hiroki and Raiko both nodded sagely.

"What are you talking about?"

"8th Div Captain," Hiroki said. He looked around as if he thought he was being watched, and whispered, "Koga Satoru. Fricken' insane. That's all there is to it, man."

Right as he said this, Kaede came into view, brunch tray in one hand, pulling a nervous-looking Ran behind her with the other.

"Seriously, Ran. You won't be running into any seated officers here, let alone Captains. It's the Academy cafeteria!"

"B-but, he _knows_, nee-san. He sees _everything_. He'll come and find me!"

"Honestly. You weren't present at that ride-along long enough to incur his particular wrath for anything. I'm sure he couldn't care less about you." She plopped Ran down in a chair next to Raiko, and Raiko put her arms around her comfortingly.

Ran shuddered again, but said nothing, turning her attention to chocolate-chip pancakes.

Kaede took a seat by me. I leaned over to her. "Was it really that bad?"

"Ran swears some first-year got killed for sneezing during a training exercise. I personally think she's exaggerating…but there definitely is something a little messed up about that Captain."

"Don't speak his name!" Ran squeaked.

"…I didn't," Kaede said, rolling her eyes and sipping a bowl of miso soup.

Ran again fell silent.

"Um…right. Anyway, how was it for the rest of you?" I asked. "You wouldn't believe what happened at mine."

"Where were you, Raiko asks," Ran translated quietly after a second.

"12th Div. Research and Development. I'm telling you, they've got some crazy stuff going on in there."

Ran cringed at the word "crazy," but managed to keep her cool.

"Whatd'ya mean?" Hideki asked.

"Hollow traps and kidou bombs and something to do with refurbished mod souls or something…" Kaede looked vaguely interested at that last one, but didn't say anything, so I kept going. "Anyway, while we were there, there was actually a break-in in some super-secret department. Wouldn't even tell us what was going on. They were all pretty cool though. Really laid back. Captain Izumi's an odd one."

"You call her by her first name?" Kaede asked.

I nodded. "We were told to. That, or 'hey you.'"

"Huh. Mine was a little more…structured," she said.

"Where were you?"

"7th Division. They were nice, I guess, but that's not really my style."

"Raiko says, Well, that's why we do these, right?" Ran translated.

Kaede nodded. "How about you, Raiko? How was the Healer's Division?"

"Boring as all hell?" Hiroki offered under his breath.

Raiko glared at him, and signed.

Ran translated. "She said it was just what she expected, that she had a really good time, fit in well with the group, and," Ran gasped, "even got to go to the Living World!"

Hiroki spit out his soup, and grabbed a napkin to mop up. "Are you _kidding_? We were in 10th and they didn't even let us leave the building! How'd you pull that?"

Raiko shrugged, and smiled.

"Hmph. Probably flirted with the Captain or something," Hiroki said.

Raiko blushed.

"No way," I said. "You didn't."

She shook her head, and Ran translated again. "She says of course not, it's just that…huh? Raiko, you didn't finish your sentence."

Raiko was staring off at another table, looking concerned, and had in fact quit signing mid-sentence. Suddenly she turned to me and started again.

Ran did her job as usual. "She says it looks like there's a problem over there, Taiki."

I followed her glance and immediately saw what she was talking about. Raiko had already stood to move, but I held out a hand and stood myself.

"It's okay, Raiko-san. I've got this one."

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I woke the next morning with a smile on my face, energized by my ride-along and wishing that Sundays had free-training periods too. Instead, I found a small empty classroom courtyard in which to run through my sword forms myself, empty handed, then headed down to the cafeteria for brunch.

Raiko was already there when I arrived, and was sitting with Taiki and the rest. I was pretty sure I still didn't want to get involved in that, so I moved over to Koji's usual table instead. Koji must have been away getting seconds; his seat was empty, but the rest of his gang was there.

Chie smiled and waved me over to the seat next to her. "I didn't see you at 6th Division yesterday," she said. "Everything okay?"

"What were you doing there?" I asked. "You aren't a first year."

She smiled. "My older brother's in that Division. I go visit sometimes. But I didn't see you with the Academy group."

"That's because I wasn't there."

"Were you late?" She nodded and took a bite of rice. "They're pretty strict about that."

"No," I said. "Well, yes. But that's not why. They had to transfer me to a different group for some reason. I ended up with the 13th Division."

"That's odd," she said. "It's not like they were full or anything. Oh well…how was the 13th, then? Did you have fun?"

"I had a blast!" I grinned. "The Captain was really strong confident, and she ran the whole Division so well with just a glance or a hand motion. You could tell they all respected her."

Chie nodded.

"And the Vice Captain," I added, "was _incredible_ with a katana – I'd never seen anything like it – and," I blushed but grinned conspiratorially, "was pretty cute too."

Chie and I both giggled. Before I had time to consider how nice it was to have someone with whom I could share these sort of things, another voice from behind me stuttered.

"W-wait a minute – you're not – I mean I guess whatever floats your boat and all, but I didn't think…"

I turned and saw Koji standing there, plate full of seconds, giving me a most bizarre expression.

I frowned. "What on earth are you talking about?"

"Well, I just heard you talking like that about the Vice Captain…I mean she's good looking I guess, but, well…you're a girl, and she's…"

Once I figured out what he was talking about, I burst out laughing. "Oh! That's what you mean? It's not like that," I said. "The Vice Captain was a guy."

Koji frowned now. "No, I'm pretty sure that's not the case. If there'd been a change of guard in the 6th I would have heard. Not that it shouldn't happen…"

"For your information, the Vice Captain of the 6th Division was perfectly nice to me, and I have no idea what you're talking about. But I wasn't _with_ the 6th Division."

Koji put his plate down and crossed his arms. "But you said you signed up with them."

I shrugged.

"She was transferred to the 13th," Chie added helpfully. "Apparently it was…"

"…a lot of fun," I finished.

"Well that's too bad," Koji began, then looked at me. "Fun?"

"Yeah!" I said. "They treated us so well, way better than the treatment I got with the 6th – although, as I said, I don't blame the Vice Captain for that, I don't really see your problem with her…"

"How would you be expected to understand politics?"

I stood. "Excuse me? I may be a first year, but I know where I'm welcome and where I'm not. The 6th Division, for the most part, made me feel unwanted. The 13th treated me like I was already a member! As far as I'm concerned, when I graduate I'm headed straight to Division 13."

Before I could react, Koji had me backed up against the brick wall that encircled our outdoor eating area, his arm across my chest and his face way too close. I cringed. At the table, Chie made to speak out, but Araki Seiji held her back.

"Listen here, Sayuri. You belong to _me_. For as long as you are part of this group you will do exactly as I say. Do you understand me?"

"No!" I said, but I stopped when he pressed harder.

"We'll you'd better. I know what's good for you way better than you ever will, and if you ever want to do well at this – "

Suddenly, a metal fork came whizzing out of nowhere and stuck in the wall beside Koji's head. He turned, incensed. "What the?!"

As I relaxed, still against the wall, I saw Masuyo Taiki tossing a knife, I assumed the other part of the set, up in the air, catching and tossing it repeatedly and gazing with amusement at the fork stuck in the wall.

"Huh. I didn't actually expect that to hit. That was pretty cool."

"Are you threatening me, freshman?" Koji demanded.

"I guess I am," Taiki said, face slightly more stern now. "You don't own that girl. If anything, her parents probably own the cafeteria you're walking in. And possibly your family's house in Rukongai, too."

Koji glared. I wondered why he didn't rush at Taiki, until I realized that Taiki was still armed…and Koji had nothing.

"You little…"

"Little what?" Taiki asked with a smirk. "Come on, Akemi. Let's leave this creep alone. You can sit with us."

"Wh…"

"Why? Because I say so. But it _is_ up to you, of course," he added with a glare at Koji.

I looked over in the direction Taiki had come from, noting the worried faces of Raiko and the others as they watched.

"Sure," I said, maintaining a strong distance from Koji as I moved around him to Taiki's side. We turned to go, but Taiki turned around and addressed Koji once more.

"Hey, _sempai_," he said with a sneer. "If you touch her again without her permission, I'll kill you."

And he escorted me back towards his table.

"Why did you…"

Taiki grinned at me and shrugged. "Can't stand to see a damsel in distress, I guess. You'll forgive me for being an ass earlier, I hope?"

I laughed. "You weren't any worse than I was."

"Good. Let's start over at the beginning then. Masuyo Taiki," he said, and stuck out an introductory hand.

"Sayuri Akemi," I said, taking it. "Pleased to meet you."


End file.
